18 hours Ago By Jason Jones
Sign up to our Sunderland AFC newsletter Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Sunderland Echo, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. After weeks of teasing cameos, Sunderland head coach Regis Le Bris deemed that Good Friday was finally the time for Enzo Le Fée to make his first start since a lengthy stint on the treatment table due to a hamstring issue sustained all the way back in February. The messiah usually waits until the Sunday of Easter weekend to do his rising, but whatever.
All being well, the Frenchman should soon be joined in the Black Cats’ match day squad by the likes of Dennis Cirkin, Dan Ballard, and perhaps even Romaine Mundle and Aji Alese, but at Ashton Gate against an upwardly mobile Bristol City , all eyes of a Mackem persuasion were fixed firmly on their mesmeric January signing. Advertisement Advertisement Within 40 seconds, the chants of “We’ve got Le Fée” could be heard booming from a crammed away end. Within 45 seconds, the man in question had Cruyff-turned an opponent on his own byline, sending said adversary sprawling like a baby giraffe on an ice rink.
Intriguingly, in the early knockings, Le Fée - so often touted as the sorely-missed creative saviour of Le Bris’ young side in recent weeks - was deployed as the deepest man in a midfield trio, gliding around regally in behind the ever-lively Chris Rigg and the newly-unshackled Dan Neil. And then, it all got a little bit claustrophobic. After Trai Hume was - somewhat contentiously - shown a straight red card just seven minutes into proceedings, Sunderland found themselves, through no real fault of their own, pressganged into a pragmatic brand of conservatism.
Deeper and deeper the Black Cats sat, and as they did, the fleeting, opportunistic pockets of air in which Le Fée customarily likes to cast his spells began to constrict around him until, to all intents and purposes, he was left marooned on the edge of his own box, mopping up errant touches and nipping at the toes of opposition attackers - somewhere between a Roomba in velvet slippers and a peckish mosquito. As such, his greatly anticipated comeback slowly morphed into something more akin to a setback - a soundly exasperating affair that, at times, felt like watching a foreign language film without subtitles; you might be catching the odd snippet, but there is an awful lot not quite connecting as well. Advertisement Advertisement Perhaps Le Bris himself summed the midfielder’s afternoon up best.
Speaking after the final whistle in Bristol, the Sunderland boss said: "He [Le Fée] was frustrated and it's normal. But at the same time Enzo is a hard worker. Even if he was frustrated, which was the case for the whole team, he still worked well for the team.
” The Echo has launched a new WhatsApp SAFC Channel to bring the latest news, analysis and team & injury updates direct to your phone. Simply click this link to join our SAFC WhatsApp channel. And so, the wait to see Le Fée properly thrive in his favoured position drags on a little longer.
In truth, luring him to the Championship has always felt a little like hiring Pablo Picasso to decorate your kitchen, and as yet, he has still yet to stumble across the ideal set of circumstances on which to daub his full potential. First there was his stint as a makeshift left winger , then there was his spell nursing a knackered hamstring, and finally, on Friday, there was the trigger-happy intervention of referee Oliver Langford conspiring against him and his teammates. But with just three matches left before the play-offs roll over the horizon, surely it is time for Le Fée to be unapologetically unleashed.
Against Blackburn Rovers on Easter Monday, forget rotation and experimentation, just stick him in behind Eliezer Mayenda (who must start) and let him get to work. He may only play an hour, and Le Bris may see fit to tinker with the personnel around him, but if Le Fée really is Sunderland’s proverbial ace in the hole when it comes to the latter stages of their promotion push, then he needs to be treated as such. Let him find his rhythm.
Let him express himself. Let him loose. Your next Sunderland read: Eliezer Mayenda explains why Sunderland are 'confident' heading into Championship play-offs.
