REGIS Le Bris believes plenty of Championship sides will present Sunderland with the same problems that Blackpool did in Saturday's pre-season friendly victory at Bloomfield Road.

The Black Cats had to be patient against the League One hosts, who were organised and hard to break down - a glimpse, believes Le Bris, of the way rivals will play against his side this season, particularly at the Stadium of Light.

Sunderland eventually forced a breakthrough, with Jack Clarke netting a late winner.

"Obviously it was a hard game because we needed to unbalance a compact defence," said Le Bris.

"It wasn't easy to solve this problem and I think it will be one of our main problems at home for example during the season.

"The energy was good but the way we solved this problem wasn't really achieved, so we need to work on it to analyse the videos and different clips to improve this part of our game."

READ MORE

Le Bris named a strong starting XI, with the Frenchman admitting the players who featured at Bloomfield Road are in his plans for the first game of the Championship season at Cardiff. Hemir, Jewison Bennette and Jay Matete played for Sunderland's Under-21s at Hartlepool.

The head coach said: "In two weeks we will play against Cardiff. It's time to reduce the group and prepare the starting XI and maybe three, four, five substitutes will be involved. So we reduced today with this intention. Now it's time to find the little adjustments to unbalance the problems like today."

Aji Alese was forced off at half-time at Blackpool with a niggle, while Pierre Ekwah and Leo Hjelde were both missing because of minor injuries.

Sunderland at Blackpool: Patterson, Hume, O’Nien, Alese (Johnson 46’), Cirkin, Neil, Browne (Rigg 70’), Jobe, Roberts, Clarke, Mayenda.

Subs not used: Moore, Anderson, Mundle, Rusyn, Ba, Aouchiche.