From Heroics at Anfield to a Blow in Manchester: A Defining Week for Sunderland

Sunderland need to pick themselves up after their defeat to Manchester City in Matchday 15 of the Premier League.

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In a week of high intensity for Sunderland, they managed to rescue one point out of six possible against two of the best teams, not only in England, but in the world.

Last December 3, they played a match against Liverpool that ended 1-1 at Anfield, being an intense and demanding match, with a strong possibility of having been able to win it in the final minutes of the game. But it did not happen due to a timely defensive action from Liverpool.

On December 6, they faced Manchester City in an even more competitive match, both games in away conditions, and there they saw the 3-0 defeat in a match where the team led by Pep Guardiola took the game with a dominant performance.

Regis Le Bris Reveals the Reason for Sunderland Loss by 3-0 Against Manchester City

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Sunderland Echo revealed the statements of the French coach of Black Cats, where a heavy defeat was seen against the Premier League team.

That positive intensity, like the one shown at Anfield, was expected, but Regis Le Bris revealed why a tidy Sunderland was not seen.

Probably the difficulty of repeating performances at a high level was the reason for the result. Three days ago, we were in Liverpool and I think we showed a very strong version of Sunderland, but today, maybe we lacked intensity; it was not enough to be competitive. We defended well, we tried to build under pressure, but it was not enough to be competitive.

Regis Le Bris

The main problem that appeared was sustaining consistency across the season, especially with so little rest time between matches and with both being away games. Mentality also influenced and played against Black Cats in this match.

RLB assesses today's defeat at Manchester City 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/raJVRKdDwx

— Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) December 6, 2025

With goals from Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and Phil Foden they finished the match, in addition Sunderland, due to lack of intensity, received worse news, as Luke O'Nien was sent off for a very dangerous action against Matheus Nunes.

He will miss the next match against Newcastle United on December 14, hoping to recover from this defeat and thinking about moving up some positions in the Premier League after dropping to seventh place in the league with matchday 15 still to be completed.