REGIS Le Bris made his Sunderland players watch footage of some minor mistakes from Chris Mepham this week - so they could see how the defender took responsibility and quickly put any errors behind him.

Mepham made a hugely impressive debut for the Black Cats in last week's win over Middlesbrough at the Stadium of Light and Le Bris must decide whether to recall Dan Ballard or stick with the Bournemouth loanee for today's game at Watford (3pm).

After his impressive debut, Mepham told of how Sunderland's bosses had stressed the importance of his leadership and experience when he arrived on deadline day.

And the 26-year-old already has a crucial role in Sunderland's young dressing room.

That will also be the case for new recruit Aaron Connolly, who can help to educate Sunderland's youngsters on the lurking dangers to avoid for potential stars of the future.

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Connolly has so far struggled to fulfil his potential having initially burst through in the Premier League when he was a teenager. But he can put those experiences to good use on Wearside, says Le Bris, who would prefer to not suffocate his young emerging stars.

"I let them fly, if it's possible," he said.

"This balance with experience, I’ll explain it for Aaron, he maybe got carried away before and now, after, he understood that he could have many problems if that is the case. So these experiences are very helpful to those players that don’t know these potential problems.

"Chris Mepham, for example, is great for that as when we have spoken in here for example he has shown great maturity.

"On this screen behind me I have shown two or three clips this week where Chris was involved with a mistake and he just said ‘it was my fault’ instead of trying to find an excuse.

"So this experience and this behaviour is very important for everybody because we can all make mistakes but we need to learn very quickly.

"The young players, we can expect them to not make any mistakes, but it is not possible. If you take risks then you will make mistakes, that is for sure, but if you learn quickly it’s OK."

Sunderland come up against a Watford team who are on a three-game winless run and got thumped at Norwich last week.

“This is a pivotal week for us," said boss Tom Cleverley, with the Hornets facing Preston in midweek before the visit of Middlesbrough next Saturday.

“While I don’t want to overplay it, it’s something I’ve let the lads know.

“When you can pick up nine points in seven days and two of them are home games, then we need a response from our last league performance."