Sunderland boss makes exciting Callum Doyle claim as Manchester City youngster makes big impression

The Manchester City loanee grew into the opening-day fixture as the Black Cats sealed a 2-1 win over Wigan Athletic, building yet more momentum from an excellent pre-season campaign.

Johnson had been hugely impressed with how the 17-year-old dealt with experienced forward Josh Magennis a week previous, and says his showing in front over 31,000 fans was another big step forward.

Tellingly, the Sunderland head coach believes there is even more to come from Doyle in the weeks and months ahead.

"It was a big test for him," Johnson said.

"He passed one last week in the way he was able to cope with the physicality of Josh Magennis at Hull, and this was an even bigger one.

"You can never be sure how young players are going to react. Sometimes the legs go a bit to jelly, they can get a little elbow and suddenly crumble.

"But I think he just grew and grew through the game.

"His passing ability I think is already as good as anything in the division. Even there, I don't think he had as many line-cutting passes as he normally would. But you could see the two or three diagonals that were full of quality.

"From about twenty minutes we played some really nice stuff, and that started from him. They adjusted it to try and stop him, but we were still able to get our passing game going."I think early on they probably targeted our left side with two young lads in Callum and Dan Neil, and they grew up really, really quickly and that was the bit that impressed me with two very young players."

Johnson could be tempted to rest Doyle for the Carabao Cup first round tie against Port Vale on Tuesday night, with Ollie Younger in contention to feature.

Bailey Wright also looks set to feature as he builds his match fitness following a groin issue in pre-season.

Wright made his competitive return in the closing stages of the win over Wigan.

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