STADIUM OF LIGHT – Stop the count and dump the ballot box. If anyone but Regis Le Bris wins the Premier League manager of the year award it will be a travesty.
Others may have lifted the silverware this season, but the Sunderland head coach has masterminded a campaign for the ages at the Stadium of Light. A superb win over an abject Chelsea stamped the Black Cats’ passport into the Europa League, and with it the first European campaign for 53 years for a fanbase who have grown in belief over their best season for a generation.
The scale of the achiement is stupendous. This defeat of Chelsea arrived exactly a year to the day since Le Bris helped them clamber out of the Championship via the play-offs. Four years and five days ago they beat Wycombe Wanderers to seal promotion from League One. It is some story.
Before the season they were tipped by many to go down but Le Bris – backed by the most imaginative response to promotion in recent history – has turned those fears into tears of joy. They haven’t just survived, they have thrived and torn up the narrative that the Premier League is an experience to be endured after achieving promotion.
For the wider game – and with apologies to those in Teesside and Tyneside who will be casting envious glances at this European qualification party – it is a timely and terrific reminder that the sport does not belong to the timid. In 2025 all three teams went down with Ipswich Town basically recruiting a team of Championship all-stars to make sure they bounced straight back up. There were grim warnings about the top tier becoming a closed shop.
