How Sunderland’s Eliezer Mayenda and Dennis Cirkin benefitted from behind-closed-doors friendly match

Sunderland Under-21s assistant coach John Hewitson says the club are managing Eliezer Mayenda’s workload following the striker’s hamstring injury.

The 18-year-old striker is yet to make a senior appearance for the Black Cats following his summer move from French side Sochaux, but did play 90 minutes during a behind-closed-doors match against a Hibernian XI at the Academy of Light on Monday.

There were suggestions Mayenda could also feature for Sunderland’s under-21s side against Tottenham at Eppleton CW on Friday, yet he wasn’t named in the squad. It came after first-term boss Tony Mowbray said the teenager could be named on the bench for Saturday’s Championship match against Norwich. “Is it worth putting him on the bench, and maybe giving him a spell at the end of the game? Maybe, because it only takes a second to score a goal. So let’s wait and see,” said Mowbray during Thursday’s press conference.

When asked about Mayenda’s absence against Tottenham, Hewitson told the Echo: “I think with Mayenda he’s had a long rehab period. We played a behind-closed-doors game on Monday which he played a lot of minutes in that. It’s just a case of the medical and sports science people managing his load during the week because he basically came in and has suffered an injury. We are just making sure he’s ready to go when needed so that’s just like the finer details with the sports science and the medical staff.”

Dennis Cirkin also played 45 minutes for Sunderland’s under-21s side in the behind-closed-doors game against Hibernian as he recovered from a hamstring injury, before coming off the bench against Leicester in the Championship on Tuesday.

When asked about the behind-closed-doors match against Hibernian, Hewitson added: “I think for us it was more of a case of some of our players haven’t had lots of minutes in previous weeks because of the first-team involvement. We can sort of look at and organise games for when we think X,Y and Z may come down from the first team as it has a knock-on effect with us. It’s just making sure the 21s get minutes in their legs and are ready to go when needed.”