Sunderland ‘keenly interested’ in young defender – Black Cats temptationdespite loyalty
Fiorentina youngster Eddy Kouadio has impressed for the club’s youth side this season and his performances are now attracting interest from Sunderland.
FiorentinaNews have reported today that while Fiorentina manager Raffaele Palladino has called up the youngster to the first-team, Sunderland are ‘keenly interested’ in the talent.
The report states that while Kouadio wants to stay loyal to Fiorentina and he is quite intent on growing at La Viola, he could find it difficult to reject the advances of an English club. He would be attracted by the fact that Sunderland have been giving opportunities to younger players and he can benefit from their approach.
It remains to be seen how much the Black Cats will offer to Fiorentina or to the player, and the belief is the 18-year-old’s future is far from certain.
He is seen as someone who has a lot of room to grow and even if his current deal in Florence runs out in 2027, Sunderland can become an option because of their tendency to give younger players a chance.
Former Sunderland man heaps praise on Regis Le Bris for one special thing he’s done this season
Sunderland have seven games to go this season, plus a play-off adventure still to come, but Regis Le Bris deserves credit for the work he has done already.
After the win over Millwall at the weekend, Sunderland are all-but confirmed to finish fourth in the Championship table.
The Black Cats will already be thinking about potential play-off opponents, and the promise of Premier League football is still a very real possibility.
Whether that happens or not, Regis Le Bris surely has to be commended for what he has achieved on Wearside in his first season, and one former Sunderland man certainly agrees.
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Sunderland are ‘fresh and energetic’ under Regis Le Bris
Speaking on the club’s official social media channels, David Healy reflected on what has changed at Sunderland this season and underlined the impact of the Sunderland manager on the young team at the Stadium of Light.
He said: “When you see the setup of the team, the high press, the high energy, the way they keep the ball; it’s a youthful nature, very young and fresh and energetic team that they have.
“We should give great credit to, not only the people who have identified and brought in those high quality players, but the manager still needs to put that level of performance onto the pitch. In the time that he’s been there, the success they’ve had has been very good.”
Sunderland have the youngest squad in the whole division, and have spent far less than the three teams above them in the promotion race, and yet have managed to keep pace at the top for much of the season and pull away from the chasing pack behind them.
For his first season in England, that has to be seen as a big achievement for Le Bris.
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Promotion or not, Regis Le Bris has taken Sunderland beyond their means
When you look at points tallies alone, Le Bris has surpassed all expectations and the standards set by Sunderland teams of the recent past.
He eclipsed Tony Mowbray’s points haul from the play-off campaign a couple of weeks ago, and also exceeded last season’s points tally (56) with plenty of games to spare.
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | For | Against | Diff | Points |
| 1 |  Sheffield Utd |
39 | 26 | 7 | 6 | 56 | 29 | 27 | 83 |
| 2 |  Leeds |
39 | 23 | 12 | 4 | 78 | 27 | 51 | 81 |
| 3 |  Burnley |
39 | 22 | 15 | 2 | 53 | 11 | 42 | 81 |
| 4 |  Sunderland |
39 | 20 | 12 | 7 | 56 | 37 | 19 | 72 |
| 5 |  Coventry |
39 | 17 | 8 | 14 | 56 | 51 | 5 | 59 |
| 6 |  West Brom |
39 | 13 | 18 | 8 | 48 | 35 | 13 | 57 |
Le Bris has built a solid foundation for the Black Cats very quickly. Granted, it’s disappointing that Sunderland have fallen away as the season went on, but that’s only in relative to the massive overachievement we saw in the first half of the campaign.
To be just nine points behind high-flying Burnley and Leeds, considering what their promotion rivals have spent, is a miracle, really.
They may not go up this season, but that was never the goal before the season began. The fact that it is now is testament to how Le Bris has transformed this Sunderland team in his first year at the club.
