Granit Xhaka speeches and 15 new players - Sunderland’s flying start

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As Le Bris, the head coach who arrived on Wearside last summer so unknown that no one in the Durham hotel he first stopped at knew who he was, put it: “To be competitive in this league we have to break something, otherwise the same trend continues and we know the outcome.”

To that end, Sunderland are breaking the perception of themselves, and breaking the model of how to come up and then fight to stay up.

It may seem an oversimplification but Sunderland, under the astute ownership of the 28-year-old Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, have gone from a club who took in close to a billion pounds in TV money in their previous eight-year stay in England’s top tier and left with virtually nothing, to one that others will soon start to copy.

Sunderland have shown that arriving in the Premier League as a lean and keen young team with huge Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) headroom is the way forward. With an average age of 22, they were the youngest team in the Championship last season. They also had one of the smallest annual wage bills, at just £14.5million. That created the breathing space to go on a spending spree that possibly took club historians back to the days when Sunderland were known as the Bank of England Club back in the 1940s and 1950s.

Wearside watched bewildered and enthralled during the summer as 15 new players arrived at a total cost of £167million. Crucially, there were also 17 departures. Under Louis-Dreyfus, a French trust-fund billionaire who studied for a year at Leeds Beckett University, and thanks to a tinkering of the structure — Florent Ghisolfi, formerly of Roma and Nice, joined as director of football, to work with Kristjaan Speakman, the sporting director — Sunderland have gone for it.

The sale of Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund and Tommy Watson, the play-off final hero, to Brighton & Hove Albion, recouped £42million alone. There was another £15million pocketed last summer with the sale of Jack Clarke to Ipswich Town.

The sales were crucial but it was the incomings that were so eye-catching. Le Bris had a significant say in who arrived this summer, and they have propelled Sunderland to a position where, before their visit to Old Trafford on Saturday, they sit four points above Manchester United.

Granit Xhaka arrived for £12million from Bayer Leverkusen and has excelled in a central midfield holding role. The 33-year-old gives brief dressing room speeches to his team-mates after games, and talks of staying humble. Xhaka’s commitment to the club is such that he has already bought a home in the region. The central defender Omar Alderete, the matchwinner against Nottingham Forest last weekend, was in La Liga’s team of the season last year. The 28-year-old cost £12million from Getafe.

Robin Roefs has three clean sheets, has made the third-highest number of saves in the Premier League this season and cost less than Xhaka and Alderete. On Thursday, both Xhaka and Roefs, 22, were nominated for the Premier League player of the month award.

The recruitment model now used by Sunderland involves advanced data analytics but also the evidence of scouts who have actually watched the player in person. That is seen as crucial, to make sure there is a tactical context that numbers often cannot provide.

The sight of private jets arriving in the northeast to be met by club employees this summer told of a different Sunderland to the one who asked fans to help them fix new seats in the Stadium of Light seven years ago. Louis-Dreyfus, the son of the late Robert Louis-Dreyfus, the former majority shareholder of Marseille, will sometimes become involved in the process if it is thought worthwhile. He spoke to Xhaka, for example, before the former Arsenal midfielder signed.

Potential signings are sent a short video showing Sunderland’s history and the upgraded training ground facilities. There is another explaining Le Bris’s playing philosophy, counterpressing style, and what he expects from his players.

Le Bris also insisted to those players who have lost their first-team spot that they would be needed, and that they had to “stay connected” when were called upon. When Dan Ballard, the hero of the play-off semi-final win over Coventry City, been asked to step in between Alderete and Nordi Mukiele, to shore games up with three central defenders, he has returned towering displays. Enzo Le Fée and Chris Rigg are also back playing, as two clever, creative midfielders.

The head coach also insisted that he had the forwards from the promoted side to score the goals to keep Sunderland up. That felt extremely bold, but his view has been vindicated so far. Wilson Isidor has scored three goals in the first three Premier League games at the Stadium of Light.

Le Bris, who added two new coaches in Luciano Vulcano and Isidre Ramon Madir this summer, has been nominated for the Premier League manager of the month award for the second time. “It is a pleasure,” he said. “It means our collective is positive. My first idea here was to get the connection, with the club, the staff and the players, and that connection was natural.”

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