RLB BALLARD UPDATE

The bad news is Dan Ballard has been ruled out for the New Year’s Day fixture with Manchester City. RLB said: "We hope he is available for the next fixture but it is not serious."

Meanwhile, Habib Diarra, Chemsdine Talbi, Noah Sadiki and Arthur Masuaku respective countries have all progressed to the knockout stage of the 2025 African Cup of Nations and Bertrand Traoré and Reinildo are set to join them. Not good. Le Bris said: "They are all good players in good national squads. We wish them the best. It will create positive vibes later when they come back.”

RLB ON 2025

It (2025) was really positive and that’s because of the teamwork,” he said. “This will be the key foundation for the future. We had a tough period as well. Sometimes when you think about the end, the position at the minute, the result in the play-offs but it was tough to get to this point. It’s about hard work, it’s about collective work, it’s about resilience, creativity and so on. I hope these will all still be the key foundations for the future. It’s always a strength for us and we have to use it when it is possible.”

RLB ON MAN CITY

“I hope we’ll use the negatives from the previous game to get better, and the positives as well because we were able to play and create chances. They are smart and they are able to manage different scenarios. When they scored the two goals, they were able to defend a bit differently. It’s going to be a new experience in the Premier League. We had this situation in the Championship with another added game. It’s a long sequence. It’s a bit different but it’s interesting. You can have a bad period but it means you can react quickly afterwards. Game, reset, game, reset. This is football and that’s what we like.”