Sunderland’s pre-season campaign got well underway at the weekend.
The Black Cats enjoyed their annual friendlies against Gateshead and South Shields, having taken two dramatic wins against them last summer.
Their victory over the latter was much more convincing this time, thrashing The Mariners 5-0, with goals from Patrick Roberts, Trai Hume, Chris Rigg, Eliezer Mayenda and Adil Aouchiche.
A completely new squad then took on Gateshead just hours later, but were unable to prevent a 2-1 defeat to the National League club.
Sunderland are now preparing to jet off to Spain where they will undergo a warm weather training camp, as well as taking on Nottingham Forest and Eldense.
Regis Le Bris sends message to Sunderland squad
Regis Le Bris has now sent a message to his team following the weekend’s results, as well as explaining what he is still ‘waiting’ for this summer.
Speaking to the Sunderland Echo, the Frenchman said: “After two weeks of technical and physical reconditioning, for me, it was the real start of the season because we are here to play games and it’s our pleasure. So it was interesting. Two different scenarios, two different teams. They were mixed and I felt that the players tried to express their ideas.”
