AFTER the arrival of Alan Browne, Regis Le Bris is hoping his squad is further strengthened by new faces this summer but for Sunderland's head coach transfers aren't the be-all and end-all.

For Le Bris, the priority is and always has been the development of young talent rather than going out and buying ready made players.

That background and philosophy, he admits, is how he came to become Sunderland's boss this summer. It was in youth development that Le Bris made his name in France, first with Rennes and then Lorient.

And when Sunderland's hierarchy set about identifying head coach targets this summer, candidates with a proven record of nurturing young talent were placed at the top of the list.

So while there's no doubt that Sunderland will continue to push to strengthen their squad with signings this summer - with a striker still an obvious must - Le Bris' focus in the coming weeks and months will be on ensuring the Black Cats gets the very best out of the players, particularly the youngsters, already on their books.

"It's one of the main reasons we met each other, I think," he said.

"I knew that there was interest in coaches who are able to develop young players in the team and I think I was searching for this kind of vision, this kind of organisation. To be able to improve a team, it's really a way of thinking.

"You can buy many players and put them on the pitch and hope that talent will solve everything, but in France at Rennes and Lorient our ideas were always about developing.

"For 20 years I've been this kind of coach and I improved the model, I improved with my team and my teammates, to be efficient in developing a team. I think it explains why we are here together, because it's my methodology and the idea of the club to improve."

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Le Bris has now had almost a fortnight on the training pitches with his squad and will see the players in action for the first time this weekend when Sunderland take on South Shields and Gateshead in a friendly double-header on Saturday.

For fans it will be a first glimpse of what to expect under Le Bris, but the head coach was keen to stress that change takes time. And while he has a clear idea of what he wants his teams to look like, he's aware of the need to adapt to get the best out of the players at his disposal.

"There are many, many coaches because we can find many ideas," he said when discussing his managerial inspirations.

"Now we have more access to videos and wide angles which is very useful to understand the ideas.

"I liked Guardiola when he was at Barcelona, for example, De Zerbi when he was at Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk.

"We won’t play like Guardiola or De Zerbi, because we are Sunderland and I’m Régis Le Bris, but these ideas help us to find inspiration on how to solve problems. For example, how to build the game from the goalkeeper, some coaches are very strong in this phase so we can use their principles sometimes and try to implement it into our way of thinking."