00:00With Sunderland's young midfielder Jobe Bellingham now having departed the WSI club for pastures new following their Wembley win, Sunderland are formulating plans for their return to the Premier League.
00:13Sunderland's hierarchy will know that acquisitions are needed to make sure the club can compete in England's top flight of football, given the fact that in the last two seasons all three promoted clubs have gone straight back down again, which is not a trend they want to follow.
00:30As for the rest of Regis Labrissa's young squad, keeping them together could be just as important as any incomings that do arrive at the Stadium of Light during the summer.
00:44At least we need to remember that the connection between players is often more important than the talent of one player.
00:57And for me as a manager, I think in football in general, sometimes we forget that it's a collective sport, a collective effort, and we tend to focus on one talent who made the difference, but it's not the main point.
01:21The main point is the way we work together. And this squad was really impressive this season about their connection, even when it was tough, they stayed connected, they want to learn from mistakes and so on.
01:34So, yeah, it was a strong feeling this season.
01:38Yeah, I think it's really important you have a group of players that understand the club.
01:41I think there's six of those players that have been with Sunderland from League One to the Premier League in terms of being double promotion.
01:49A couple of those are homegrown as well. So I think it's really become sort of key foundation and ethos of the club, really, to have players that represent them for a long time,
02:00that come up through the academy or that are both young and then come up through the Sunderland system.
02:05It'll help in the briefs. Obviously, you'll have dressing room leaders.
02:07One player who will be staying at Sunderland following the win at Wembley is Enzo Le Fay, who completed his permanent transfer from Roma.
02:15Yeah, it was, first of all, a strong teammate. I think I want to reiterate this, this idea because he started as a left winger, probably played most of the time in this position.
02:31And when we had the opportunity to play with Romain again, it was possible to use Enzo in his main position.
02:40But because the background of the experiences was small, only 30 minutes at the end of the game against Coventry, probably their references were not really clean.
02:54I'm really interested by Enzo Le Fay and in Enzo Le Fay.
02:59I think when he came to the club, we were obviously hugely excited given the potential transfer fee, where he was coming from, his pedigree.
03:05Then injuries meant he played out on the left-hand side and did very well there, but we were all sort of clamouring to see him in the middle.
03:11And when he's played in the middle, he's contributed for Sunderland in terms of assists during the playoff campaign.
03:18But we haven't really worked out his best midfield role yet. We thought it would be sort of as a number 10, but in the final, it was when he dropped back that actually started to make things happen in a more number 6 position.
03:31As for academy graduate Tommy Watson and Joe Benningham himself, they will be difficult to replace, but they leave with Sunderland's best wishes, having helped them get promoted back to the Premier League.
03:44It's an absolutely dream come true to a Sunderland fan, being at the club's hours five, six years of age.
03:50I think we're going to celebrate a lot of the night, as you can see.
03:53I think that was my last kick as a Sunderland fan, to be fair.
03:56So yeah, I'll see people in the Premier League next year.
03:58I mean, there's ways to say goodbye. That is just incredible. Is that how you dreamt it?
04:03Yeah, I think the last few weeks, I think this was always written off.
04:06I've received stings from the fans, but they've come out on the other side and I don't think I'll be getting stigged.
04:11It's not all about goals and assists for Joe Benningham, but he does contribute those as well.
04:16So I think in terms of Sunderland's team, I think it's very hard to replace him with just one player.
04:24Obviously, Enzo Lafayre probably coming into the middle to be a starter.
04:28Will that affect him? I think Joe Benningham, you really need to replace his stature, his height, his strength,
04:33because he was such sort of a physical powerhouse, despite the fact that he was only a teenager.
04:38So I'm really interested to see how Sunderland do that.
04:41So thank you for being here.
04:47I'm really interested to see how Sunderland is going to be a starter.
04:51After I've heard of a whale, this one is probably one entity that I've brought who cares a star for her.
04:54So if you're interested in, show up in front of a star, that you've gotSC
