Sunderland<\/a> had an early chance through Romaine Mundle, but the winger fired wide after cutting inside.<\/p>\nIn the 12th minute Nordi Mukiele forced Arthur Okonkwo into a save after some good link-up play between Brian Brobbey and Diarra. The French full-back’s effort was parried away by the keeper.<\/p>\n
On the half-hour mark a battle commenced between Brobbey and Wrexham centre-back Dominic Hyam. Brobbey, with his back to goal, was causing huge problems for the 30-year-old. The second challenge saw Hyam booked for wrestling the Dutch striker to the ground.<\/p>\n
The Black Cats took the lead on 34 minutes: Trai Hume found Brobbey in the area, who held it up and laid it off to Mukiele, who swept his low effort past Okonkwo and into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n
Wrexham thought they had an equaliser just three minutes later, but Broadhead was offside. Imray swung a low ball into the area and, flicked on by Kieffer Moore, the ball fell to Broadhead, who rolled into an empty net, but the goal was quickly ruled out.<\/p>\n
Le Bris’ side caused Wrexham more problems in the closing stages of the first half. Sadiki and Mundle played a neat one-two, but the Congolese midfielder saw his effort deflected away from goal.<\/p>\n
Changes after the break<\/p>\n
Both sides made a double change at half-time. Nilson Angulo and Jenson Seelt came on for the Black Cats. Ollie Rathbone and former Sunderland midfielder George Dobson were brought on by Parkinson.<\/p>\n
Angulo nearly made a huge impact minutes after entering the field. The winger picked up possession after a sloppy pass from Dobson, cut inside and tried to find the top left corner, but his effort clipped the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Brobbey created yet another chance, holding off Hyam to find Hume, and Doyle blocked the right-back’s shot behind for a corner.<\/p>\n
Le Bris made eight changes on the hour mark, with Anthony Patterson making his first appearance since August 2025. Leo Hjelde, Alan Browne and Simon Adingra were also brought on.<\/p>\n
Patterson was called into action not long after being introduced, standing tall to catch Broadhead’s looping header.<\/p>\n
Lewis O’Brien forced a low save from Patterson after a misplaced pass from Adingra. The 26-year-old shot-stopper got down well to collect.<\/p>\n
Minutes in the tank<\/p>\n
The first half was a strong showing, with some lovely link-up in midfield between Sadiki, Diarra and Chris Rigg.<\/p>\n
Mukiele and Hume both caused problems on the right, with Brobbey being a real nuisance for Wrexham’s backline.<\/p>\n
The second half saw a mix of youngsters as well as returning loanees looking to prove themselves. Angulo looked very bright and came close to scoring his first goal for the club.<\/p>\n
All in all, the three games in the States have allowed Le Bris to assess his options, with Timur Tutierov and Jenson Jones both impressing from the bench.<\/p>\n
Brobbey showed yet again how important his physicality and hold-up play is to this Sunderland side.<\/p>\n
The striker caused huge problems for the Wrexham defence and was a clear winner in his battle with Hyam.<\/p>\n
The forward could have had a second assist before being subbed off, again with his back to goal, holding off defenders and slipping in a teammate.<\/p>\n
No doubt the forward will have gained even more confidence after leading the line for Netherlands at the World Cup, netting three goals.<\/p>\n
What next for both sides?<\/p>\n
Sunderland will travel to France to take on RC Lens. The Mackems are expected to play a behind-closed-doors friendly at 11am before another game at 3pm, allowing more minutes ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n
The Black Cats will then welcome Eliezer Mayenda back to the Stadium of Light as they take on Rennes in the final warm-up game ahead of the Premier League season.<\/p>\n
For Wrexham, pre-season has concluded, with a Carabao Cup clash against Middlesbrough on Friday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regis Le Bris remained without Jocelin Ta Bi due to visa issues preventing him from entering the States,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109549,7025,109550,69,71,70,109548,38776,109547,109545,109546],"class_list":["post-257913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-carabao-cup","tag-lens","tag-middlesbrough","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-pre-season","tag-premier-league","tag-regis-le-bris","tag-sunderland","tag-wrexham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}