The Sunderland players who impressed at South Shields - #onthewhistle - video Dailymotion

Sunderland Echo

Phil discusses Sunderland's return to action at South Shields on Saturday

Transcript

00:00I wanted to shout out was Ahmed Abdullahi, who played the second half, scored his goal at the end.

00:05Excellent. Really, really enjoyed watching him play.

00:07He's a big, big player. Really physical, really strong.

00:11He finds it really easy to hold defenders off and bring the ball down and bring others into play.

00:16Got a little bit of pace about him as well and a really powerful shot.

00:19Will Abdullahi be involved in the Premier League season? I've got no idea.

00:22It's far too early to say that. You know, it might be that later in pre-season,

00:25it doesn't look like he's got a lot of game time, so someone goes for a loan.

00:28So, too early to sort of make a decision on that.

00:30But I just wanted to flag up that, you know, he looks like Sunderland have found another really, really talented player,

00:35really good physical profile, a little bit of quality about him and composure.

00:38I thought he linked up really nicely with Mahenda.

00:42And so that was something that was really encouraging to see because, of course, last season, you know,

00:45Sunderland signed him. He obviously had this groin issue, which the club knew about,

00:49but it felt that if they could get to the bottom of that and get sorted,

00:52they were signing a really, really top prospect.

00:53And certainly the evidence of yesterday convinced me that there is a real talent there.

00:57So that was something that I was really excited to see.

00:59And if anyone wasn't at South Shields, I wanted to flag that up because I think that's one to watch

01:02in the next few weeks because if Sunderland get their squad together,

01:05there will be opportunities, I imagine, in Portugal next week.

01:08I'll be really interested to see how Abdelahi gets on.

01:12If I had to pick out one player, I think he would probably impress me the most.

01:15Probably Patrick Roberts, who looked really sharp.

01:18Of course, South Shields had all kinds of problems, cutting in from the right flank.

01:21Lovely assist from Milan Aleksic, who looked powerful, got into good areas,

01:24so fair play to him as well.

01:26He's obviously in good shape heading into pre-season.

01:29Yeah, really strong performance.

01:31Really enjoyable debut from Habib Diara.

01:34I think you can see straight away that he has a little bit of quality

01:37in terms of his pass for Romain Mundell's goal, an excellent assist.

01:42But also what was really interesting was that he actually sort of played a big part

01:45in creating that counter-attack because Sunderland had actually lost the ball

01:49in their own defensive third, and South Shields thought they had an opportunity,

01:52but then Diara and Mundell combined to steal the ball,

01:55break away, and an excellent pass from Diara.

01:58Looks like a real athlete.

01:59He played in sort of the whole of the midfield rule yesterday.

02:02I think we'll probably, as I discussed on my video when Sunderland signed Diara,

02:06I imagine he'll probably play a little bit further forward in time.

02:08But yeah, played as a whole midfielder, but what was clear was how much grass

02:12he can cover very, very easily.

02:14Jumping up to press the opposition a lot, making strong recovery runs.

02:18He's a real athlete.

02:20He's going to get the pitch a lot.

02:21He's going to be a huge asset for Sunderland out of possession

02:23in terms of the pressing he can do, the ground that he can cover.

02:26As I say, that pass from Romain Mundell showed he's got a bit of quality.

02:30Now, of course, you would expect a player of that ilk to stand out

02:34in a game like this, but even so, an encouraging start for him.

02:36It would be good to see the other new signings coming into action

02:40in the next few weeks.

02:41So.

02:42So.

The Sunderland players who impressed at South Shields - #onthewhistle

Category

Transcript

Recommended