Phil Smith's Sunderland AFC Q&A: Selection questions, injury concerns and U23 talent under the microscope

A number of the academy’s best talent shone in the win, and are likely to get another opportunity to do so against Manchester United U21s next week.

In his weekly Q&A with supporters, Phil Smith has been answering Qs on those games and much more besides.

You can read it in full below...

What’s the injury situation at the moment? All of a sudden it seems like there are quite a few concerns?

Lynden Gooch should hopefully be back next week, and the same will hopefully be the case with Aiden McGeady.

He had initially hoped to play through the pain barrier at Portsmouth but in the end just wasn’t quite ready.

The break should hopefully have come at a good time

Elsewhere it’s still a little early to say.

Niall Huggins was due for a scan on a back complaint around now, while Luke O’Nien was in a lot of pain at the end of the Lincoln City game.

Corry Evans has also withdrawn from the Northern Ireland squad as a precaution due to injury, while realistically Nathan Broadhead is at least a fortnight away from returning.

How do you assess the start to the season?

I think if you wind back to a few days leading into that opening day of the season, when full-backs were nowhere to be seen and a lot of transfer business was still to be done, then 22 points from 10 and four cup wins would have rightly been seen as an excellent return.

When you add into the mix that a number of academy players have enjoyed increased gametime, the quality of football has improved and that the recruitment is beginning to look well targeted, it’s a really solid start.

And, as has been discussed before, the current table tells you that the early fixture schedule was tougher than perhaps originally realised. A lot of teams played (and beaten) are right up there and don’t look like moving anytime soon.

Looking at the situation more broadly, I did a bit of a deeper dive on the performance trends earlier this week, which you can read here.

The attacking statistics are very good, with Sunderland one of the best performers on just about every metric.

That’s particularly exciting when you think that Alex Pritchard, Nathan Broadhead and Leon Dajaku are still very much getting up to full sharpness, and that Aiden McGeady and Lynden Gooch are probably still to hit top form.

Defensively I think there’s still a lot of development to do, and Johnson had warned even before that awful afternoon at Fratton Park that the true test of this side will come when conditions make that free-flowing, passing style more difficult.

So it’s with some healthy caution that I’d say it’s been a very positive, 8/10 start.

The best thing you can say is that even accounting for that Portsmouth defeat, you look forward to watching this team play.

That’s a great place to start from.

Which of the younger players from the Lincoln win could step up do you think?

It’s a good question and first of all, it’s probably worth mentioning that the average age of the U23 group has deliberately come down this year.

That means quite a few of these players are still settling in on Wearside and are still very much in the early stages of their journey at the age group.

The point being: time is on their side.

Ellis Taylor had an excellent pre-season and has made a real impression while regularly training with the senior group. Tuesday wasn’t his liveliest performance and you can see that physically he still has a lot of development ahead, but he’s intelligent and good on the ball.

I think in the long run he definitely has a chance.

Harrison Sohna is a really tidy midfielder and similar to Taylor, just needs to work on that physicality in the months/years ahead. In both bases that’s just something that will happen overtime.

The likes of Ollie Younger, Will Harris & Kenton Richardson are probably in a slightly different category as they are approaching an age where they probably need to be playing senior football regularly.

Younger was excellent on Tuesday night, and was awarded improved terms on his contract earlier this summer.

Will Harris is an old-school number nine who has done really well in the U23s, and like Richardson I’ve no doubt that however it pans out at Sunderland, is capable of having a good career at Football League level.

The same goes for Stephen Wearne, who has impressed playing as a ten in the U23s.

I expect them all to get another chance to impress next Wednesday and hopefully push their claims further

What do you think Sunderland’s best combination is in central midfield?

I think it will vary over the course of the season, in all honesty.

I do think Luke O’Nien has proven that he has a lot to offer in midfield, and his physicality has been a really important foil for Corry Evans/Dan Neil. Neil has spoken on the record about how important that is to his game.

I think there’s more to come from O’Nien, only because we’ve seen at times in the last few years that he’s a superb finisher. That was a great goal against CHeltenham, and something we can/should hopefully see more of.

Neil and Evans then give you a great option alongside, and I’d be amazed if the former hasn’t done enough against Lincoln to start next Saturday.

As the season progresses I think there’ll be games, especially at home, where Embleton drops a little deeper to allow Pritchard to get into the team as an extra playmaker.

It’s still early days all over the pitch and to illustrate that, here’s something worth noting.

When December came around last year, Dion Sanderson still only had two league appearances to his name.

How good can Dan Neil be?

I’ll defer to the experts.

He’s long been considered one of the academy’s brightest talents and the calibre of club who have been interested in signing him (including the likes of Premier League sides Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers) in the past tells its own story.

If you didn’t see at the time it’s worth revisiting this piece with Lee Johnson from earlier this year.

Neil had just had a superb game in the Papa John’s Trophy against MK Dons and Johnson noted that he saw similar potential to that of Josh Brownhill, who would of course eventually make a big money move to the Premier League from Bristol City.

Talent wise Neil is definitely in that bracket.

What Johnson has been really keen to work on is the physical side of his game, particularly that burst over five or ten yards. It’s encouraging that we’re seeing him make rapid progress on that front.

The key for Neil, clearly, is to stay hungry and also to produce consistently both within games and over a long period of time.

What’s exciting is that anyone who has spoken to him will tell you that he’s already one of the most impressive communicators in the squad, and has a maturity well beyond his years.

He has loads to do but is such an exciting talent.

What did you make of Denver Hume’s performance and will he get straight back in?

He understandably looked a little rusty through the first half, but in the second he looked good.

There were a couple of really strong runs that pushed his opposition full back towards his own goal, and he proved a strong outlet when the Black Cats were looking to play on the break.

He was only expected to play 60-65 minutes, so to complete the full game is a really encouraging sign.

I think the reality is that his injury means he is going to have to be patient in terms of league action.

Dennis Cirkin has been superb and looks to be getting up to his best form as he finds that match sharpness, and I doubt Johnson is looking to change that any time in a hurry.

The good thing for Hume is that there’s plenty of cup games on the horizon, and that gives him a natural opportunity to build up to full match fitness.

I still think he’ll get plenty of league minutes over the course of the season.

Cirkin is still only 19, and in his first full season of senior football.

As Johnson noted when talking about Dan Neil on Tuesday night, these players simply can’t be expected to play every single game.

And I think that, just because of how long he has been injured and also the protracted nature of those contract talks, it’s maybe been forgotten a bit that at his best and sharpest Hume is a real tracking weapon.

Particularly when it comes to playing against deep-lying defences, when he can open up space and win dangerous set pieces by driving infield.

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