Regis Le Bris is in danger of the sack after Sunderland lost to Coventry City to stay bottom of the Premier League table.

Le Bris was one of the Premier League’s big overachievers last season, leading Sunderland into Europe in their first season after promotion from the Championship.

But they’ve only won once in the league so far this season and it could catch up with the mastermind of their 2025 promotion.

Some Sunderland fans are starting to turn against Le Bris – but what direction would they go in if they made a change?

It’s a hard one to predict, given how much the landscape has changed since Sunderland last had to pick a new manager as a Premier League club. That was 10 years ago, when they handed the reins to David Moyes before going down.

If Sunderland get rid of Le Bris, they need someone who can both be a firefighter and continue the project they’ve been building in recent years.

We’ve picked out six options who could keep Sunderland up.

Sean Dyche

Nothing says panic button quite like turning to Dyche these days but we can’t help but feel he’s become a bit underappreciated.

It never worked out for him at Nottingham Forest and he wasn’t up to the task at Everton before that, but his efforts over a decade with Burnley earned him plenty of admirers.

It’s been less than five years since that venture ended and at the age of 55, Dyche still has something to give as a manager – if he’s willing to put his rebirth as an influencer on hold.

Dyche’s Burnley teams at their best were hard to break down and got the basics right. Football may be evolving, but Sunderland were caught short with those kind of principles against Coventry, conceding far too much space to their opponents and giving the ball away cheaply.

We imagine Dyche wouldn’t stand for any of it.

Thomas Frank

There aren’t many managers who’d produce a more polarising outcome if you asked the fans of their last two clubs how good they are.

Frank worked wonders at Brentford before being a disaster at Tottenham. Could Sunderland fit the bill as a club with expectations somewhere in between for him to get back on track?

Brentford have kicked on even after Frank left, which makes you wonder if his success there was more down to the broader network.

But you can’t ignore that he was able to get a newcomer into the Premier League and stabilise them there. At this rate, Le Bris might fall at the second of those hurdles.

Frank knows what it takes to keep a team away from danger while still playing adventurous football, so could be the kind of figure Sunderland need to stay on track in the short-term and bigger picture.

Vitor Pereira

Pereira’s dismissal by Nottingham Forest after steering them to safety last season was on the harsh side – especially since it happened via email.

Forest were one place above the relegation zone when he replaced Dyche in February, but they finished the season in decent form, only losing one of their last 10 league games.

While Pereira didn’t have to lift them out of the bottom three, he helped them stay clear of it.

If Sunderland can find that sort of impetus, it’d be most welcome. Whether Pereira would be the right man to fix things in the long term, like Forest wondered, is up for question, but his efforts last season shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Dino Toppmoller

If Sunderland opt to go further afield, like they did when hiring Le Bris in the first place, then Toppmoller might be a manager of intrigue.

He recently lost his job at Lens just six games into his reign, reportedly over disagreements with the club over who should stay on his coaching staff.

Before that, he built his reputation up over a two-and-a-half-year spell with Eintracht Frankfurt, who were a consistent top-half Bundesliga side in his time there.

He also led them to the Europa League quarter-finals in 2025, which Sunderland would surely love to emulate this season.

Does he have the credentials to oversee a relegation battle? That’s a bit less clear, but Sunderland should be thinking big anyway after what they did last season. Get a run of form together and they’ll be fine – and Toppmoller might be capable of inspiring just that.

Domenico Tedesco

Another surprisingly short reign in Europe this season was Tedesco’s at Bologna.

An Italian-born manager whose surname is the Italian for German replacing a German-born manager whose surname is the Italian for Italian was too good a story for it to end like this.

Tedesco failed to win any of his four matches in charge of Bologna before getting the boot. He’ll certainly have his regrets after being warmly welcomed there.

If we rewind to where it all began for Tedesco, pulling off a great escape with Erzgebirge Aue in the German second tier at the age of 31 is what put him on the map.

Highs and lows followed with Schalke and then in his various other jobs but there’s still some upside with Tedesco a decade on from his breakthrough.

Kjetil Knutsen

It’s that time of the year again. A potential vacancy at a decent-sized Premier League club looms. Will someone take a chance on Knutsen? Will Knutsen take a chance on them?

He’s been content to stay at Bodo/Glimt for the past eight years and he’s worked wonders in that time. They’ve become giant killers in progressively higher-ranking European competitions and four-time Norwegian title winners.

Knutsen certainly has his enthusiasts. You do wonder why he might want to leave Bodo/Glimt given everything he’s built there – he signed a contract until 2029 in January as well – but plenty of tactical aficionados would love to see the 58-year-old take the leap.

He’s turned an underdog into a team that always need to be taken seriously. That’s what Sunderland want to do too, even if they can’t boast the unique environment that traps some of Knutsen’s opponents in the Arctic circle.

Knutsen’s track record is strong enough to suggest he delivers big wins not just because of conditions but because of footballing and tactical quality. This is the kind of opportunity he always seems to be in the conversation for and deservedly so.