FOR most managers, the international break provides an opportunity to bring players together. Team bonding, overseas training camps, squad nights out. With no weekend game to prepare for, the focus tends to shift to forging a common bond.

For Sunderland manager Chris Coleman, however, the next two weeks have come with a rather different message. Rather than keeping his players together, he has told them to get as far away from each other as they possibly can.

A relegation campaign can be a suffocating experience, and after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Preston left Sunderland five points adrift of safety, and with a markedly inferior goal difference to the teams they are trying to catch, it feels as though the walls are closing in.

So rather than forcing his players to spend yet more time in a footballing environment in the next few days, he has told them to return to their families in an attempt to clear their minds. No trudging to the training ground, no fretting about the league table. There will be plenty of time for that in the next six weeks.

Coleman considered arranging a practice game to keep his players match sharp, but decided against it last week. He didn’t say as much, but whoever he chose as the opposition, you suspect he was probably fearing that Sunderland would only have lost.

“At this stage, they’ve played so many games that another one is the last thing they need,” said Coleman, who has eight more league matches in which to salvage Sunderland’s season. “They maybe need some time away from each other instead.

“They can’t be away for too long because then they lose a bit of fitness, but I think they need a bit of time away from each other. We all need that probably. That’s not us going away as a club together, it’s probably just a bit of time at home with their families before we start preparing for Derby (on Good Friday).

“They’ll have a few days off this week and be back in the midweek for a few days. The weekend’s quiet, and then we’ll prepare again because we play on the Friday.”

Coleman will also use the next few days to try to devise a tactical plan that will enable Sunderland to turn things around in their final eight games.

The Sunderland boss has already tried pretty much everything in his 21 matches in charge - swapping between four-man and five-man defences, throwing in the youngsters only to take them back out in order to go with more experienced alternatives for the following game – but his tinkering has done nothing to alter his side’s position at the foot of the table.

It is hard to see how he can come up with anything new, although the return to full fitness of Paddy McNair and Kazenga LuaLua should at least provide him with some additional midfield options when Sunderland return to action at Derby.

After travelling to the Ipro Stadium, Sunderland return to Wearside to host Sheffield Wednesday on Easter Monday, and if they are to have any chance of avoiding relegation, it is surely imperative they win at least one of those games.

“In the second week (of the international break), we’ll have to look at different formations and personnel to get away from the road we’re on at the minute because it’s a pretty negative one,” said Coleman.

“It’s a bit of time to rethink things. It takes a bit of pressure off everybody because we’ve not got a game coming round in three or five days. Hopefully, that’ll help us.”

All of Coleman’s players have underperformed this season, but the Black Cats boss turned the spotlight on his youngsters in the wake of his side’s latest setback at the weekend.

Jake Clarke-Salter received his second red card of the year as Sunderland slumped to a 2-0 defeat, and neither Joel Asoro nor Josh Maja were able to make much of an impression in attack as Coleman dropped Ashley Fletcher to the bench.

“They’re young, but they don’t mind knocking on the door if they’re not playing and asking why,” said the Black Cats boss. “So when they’re on the pitch, the responsibility is there. Everyone is happy to knock on your door and ask why they’re not playing, so you give them their chance and say, ‘What are you going to come up with?’

“There’s a responsibility, with and without the ball. They’re young, but the problem is that we haven’t got time. Where we are, we need to produce.

“There’s no one else to go to really. They players we’ve got are the players we’ve got – those are the ones we need to get us over the line.”