The Black Cats will head to either League One strugglers Port Vale or Championship promotion hopefuls Bristol City in round five, with the two sides not due to meet until the week before fifth-round weekend after their initial tie at Vale Park was postponed on Saturday because of a waterlogged pitch.
Sunderland have won at Everton and Oxford United in the first two rounds of this season’s competition. A third away draw was far from ideal, but the fact the Wearsiders will be playing a team from a lower division no matter who eventually wins through to meet them offers an excellent opportunity to make the FA Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2014.
Le Bris is hardly a head coach who likes to get carried away, so there were no grand proclamations in the wake of his side’s weekend win at the Kassam Stadium. There was, however, a steely determination to continue to select strong starting line-ups and treat any forthcoming cup matches with the utmost respect, a stance that is undoubtedly made easier by Sunderland’s secure Premier League position that sees them 12 points clear of the drop zone with 12 more games to play.
“You never know what can happen in a cup competition,” said Le Bris, who lost his first three cup matches as Sunderland boss prior to getting off the mark with last month’s penalty shootout win over Everton. “You never know who your opponents are going to be as you progress through the different rounds.
“The one thing I would say is that at Everton and Oxford, we played our best team in both matches. That is something we will continue to do. We went strong, we went with good energy and real ambition. We will see whether that is enough in the next rounds.”
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Le Bris named a strong starting side against Oxford, albeit that the line-up still contained six changes from the team that had started the previous league game against Liverpool.
With the club’s AFCON contingent now back on Wearside, if felt like a chance for some of the players who had deputised at the turn of the year to stake a claim for a more prolonged return to the starting side.
It is hard to see Luke O’Nien dislodging either Dan Ballard or Omar Alderete on a permanent basis, just as it is tough to see how Dennis Cirkin can move ahead of Reinildo Mandava in the pecking order provided the latter stays fit.
Chemsdine Talbi will hope to wrestle back a starting spot on the right though, while Romaine Mundle boosted his chances of starting more regularly on the left with a standout display against Oxford.
Mundle was Sunderland’s most effective attacker as he cut in purposefully from the left-hand side, going close on a number of occasions in the second half as his pace and movement enabled him to break free of the Oxford defence.
“He [Mundle] can absolutely be an important player for us in the rest of the season,” said Le Bris. “He still needs time and support, and that will allow his confidence to continue to grow.
“For a forward player, for a winger, you always need to have this confidence. Performances like this one [against Oxford] will help with that.
“He was good – it would have been good for him to have scored with one of his chances in the second half because he deserved it. He didn’t, but at least he played a good game and that is really positive.”