'Class' - Dan Neil delivers Enzo Le Fee verdict after 10/10 display from £20m midfielder against Middlesbrough
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Dan Neil raved about Sunderland teammate Enzo Le Fee in the aftermath of the game against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium in the Championship on Monday evening.
Sunderland produced a stunning comeback to beat Middlesbrough and breathe new life into their automatic promotion hopes.
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Hide AdA late own goal from Ryan Giles secured the three points for the Black Cats, after Dan Neil and Wilson Isidor cancelled out an early goal from Delano Burgzorg. Hayden Hackney had restored parity but it was a moment of magic from Le Fee to carve open the game late on.
The £20m-rated Frenchman joined Sunderland on loan from AS Roma earlier in the window and scored a 10/10 for his display agains Middlesbrough in The Echo’s player ratings after a superb display on the Black Cats’ left hand side.
“I think tonight was his best game since he's been here,” Neil said after the Middlesbrough game. “I thought some of his touches were class. You can tell that he's played at a really good level tonight. Sometimes when we were kind of under pressure a little bit and we found him, he managed to go past his full-back, get up the pitch a little bit.He's linked up play with Dennis and Jobe in that left triangle. It was really good tonight.
“You can see him growing each time.It's difficult. I always say English football is completely different to any other football in the world, whether it's Premier League or Championship. So it was always going to take a few weeks for him to get up to speed with it.But I think tonight you're seeing probably his best performance so far.”
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Hide AdOn the game, Neil added: “It's a really tough place to come.They're a good team, don't get us wrong, but we always knew the first 15-20 minutes here, the crowd get right behind them. They've got a really good attacking style of football and it's tough to get a touch sometimes in the first 20 minutes. We obviously didn't get off to the best of start of the night, but I think, again, it shows the character of the lads.
“Once that first goal went in, we probably grew into the game more, put the foot on it a little bit, composed ourselves, managed to find the equaliser. Then when we came in at half-time, we said, listen, just relax. We're more than good enough to go on and win this game.I think we'll look back on this at the end of the season as a massive three points.”
“We knew that they were going to make life difficult for us in the first 20 minutes. But once we weathered that storm, I had full confidence that we were coming back and winning the game. I think we could have won it back even more, to be honest, with the chances we had in the second half.”
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