Yet if Tanaka invariably had something to do with Leeds’s increasing dominance of an oscillating first half, Le Bris’s defence generally succeeded in protecting their goalkeeper Anthony Patterson while frustrating the lively Dan James and co. Sunderland simply kept their cool, weaved Le Bris’s beloved passing triangles whenever they regained possession and waited for an opening.
By 10pm on a bitterly cold night at Elland Road any notions that Leeds United would capture the mood courtesy of a suitably cadenced performance had been thoroughly disabused as Daniel Farke’s side scrapped their way to a dramatic last-gasp win after Wilson Isidor had given Sunderland the lead.
When Illan Meslier made a bizarre error and gifted Sunderland the late equaliser that secured Le Bris’s team a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light in October, some Elland Road regulars predicted that Farke would soon lose patience with his goalkeeper.
Yet if it was hardly poetic as substitute Pascal Struijk’s two goals helped return Leeds to the top of the Championship, two points ahead of Sheffield United, seven points clear of third-placed Burnley and 10 in front of Régis Le Bris’s side.
Nonetheless Le Fée – incidentally a former school friend of Meslier’s in Brittany and fellow product of the Lorient academy once run by Le Bris – had served notice of the talent that once prompted the loanee’s parent club Roma to pay Rennes £20m for his services.
