Mike Dodds explains exactly what Sunderland defender will add after long-awaited debut at Eppleton

Mike Dodds believes that Timothée Pembélé will make Sunderland an even unpredictable outfit for their opposition as the youngster closes in on his senior debut.

Pembélé joined from PSG on deadline day needing to build his fitness away from the main group as he recovered from a long-term injury, and then suffered a setback that has prevented him from featuring so far this season. However, he has now been back in full training for almost a fortnight and made his first appearance in a red-and-white shirt at Eppleton on Monday night, playing 45 minutes as Sunderland U21s fell to a narrow defeat against Arsenal.

Sunderland will look to slowly build the 21-year-old up before exposing him to Championship football but he is now clearly closer than ever to featuring.

Speaking last week Dodds, who has now been promoted to assistant head coach under the newly-appointed Michael Beale, said that the full back would help give his side a different way of attacking an hurting opponents from deep areas.

"I was going to say he's a different type of full back [to what we've got] but to be fair I think our full backs have been that good, they've shown they can do everything," Dodds said.

"Timmy is more I would say of a flying full back, he's very quick and very athletic, dynamic. What he'll do is attack from deeper areas and give the team a different dimension that way. Credit to the football club in terms of the way they've recruited because there is so much variety in the group. If you're analysing us when Timmy is back and playing, that's going to be a difficult thing to do because of all the different options that we have."

Dodds was watching alongside Beale on Monday night and there were two further boosts for the new head coach as both Aji Alese and Jay Matete also made successful returns from long-term injuries in the game. Dennis Cirkin did not play in the game but is also back training and therefore not far from being able to make his comeback from a hamstring issue.