Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris to make changes for Bradford friendly

The Black Cats play their penultimate warm-up game ahead of their Championship season opener at Cardiff City when they head to Valley Parade to take on League Two opposition.

Le Bris’ side will complete their pre-season programme when they return to Bradford to face Ligue 1 team Marseille on Saturday, and that game is likely to see the Sunderland boss name something close to his strongest side.

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Tonight’s game will be more about getting minutes into players who need them, with most of the line-up that started Saturday’s win at Blackpool likely to be rested.

Nine of the 11 players that kicked off the 1-0 victory at Bloomfield Road played for the full 90 minutes, and are therefore likely to be on the substitutes’ bench or omitted from the squad entirely tonight.

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“It will be a different team so, for the whole group, we share the idea that we want to develop,” said Le Bris. “It’s another part of the group with the same ideas, another problem with another team, so we will see and I hope we will be able to make another step forward.

“The team wants to learn and that is clear during the week and the training sessions, but we need more experiences so that with the feedback we can build new ideas and to build the ability to adjust the little details, because that really makes the difference. We are now at that stage.”