Eliezer Mayenda enjoyed a stellar outing for Sunderland against Everton on Saturday

Look, I’ll level with you, after seeing Enzo Le Fée volley his way to redemption, Luke O’Nien embody some kind of LinkedIn Maldini for two hours straight, and Robin Roefs chuckle away to himself as he saved three consecutive Everton penalties, I did not expect Anita Asante on co-comms to award Sunderland’s Man of the Match to Eliezer Mayenda on Saturday afternoon.

That’s not to say I was disgruntled by it, just a touch surprised. You see, on some level, I hadn’t even really been expecting to see Mayenda start on Merseyside. For weeks now, it has felt as if Regis Le Bris had willingly whittled down his centre-forward options to a classic “this or that”: Brobbey or Isidor, battering ram or lockpick, a self-imposed Bri-nary choice.

Meanwhile, out on the periphery - and occasionally out on the right wing - Mayenda has largely had to settle for spinning his wheels and twiddling his thumbs. The Spaniard began the season at the point of attack, faltered a little in the wake of his opening weekend strike against West Ham, and has pretty much lay dormant ever since.

But nestled in amongst the penalty heroics and the residual magic of the cup, Saturday’s trip to the Hill Dickinson served as a timely reminder of the impetus and endeavour that Mayenda can offer Sunderland when he is on song.

For all of their respective merits, neither Brobbey nor Isidor inject the same dose of chaos-inducing directness as their young accomplice. Collectively, they may possess power and pace and guile in abundance, but it is Mayenda, like an obstinate sled dog, who can seize a game and drag his side thirty, forty, fifty yards up the pitch with a single burrowing dart. It is Mayenda who boasts not only the explosivity to turn an opposition defender on their heels, but also the nonchalant physicality to shrug them aside if they’re plucky enough to get in his way. It is Mayenda who, despite barely featuring this season, looks to be growing into himself more and more with each passing opportunity to prove his worth.

Against Everton, that budding promise manifested itself with an assist for the aforementioned Le Fée - a deft little touch in the box and a cushioned pass that the Frenchman swept home exquisitely. But there were plenty of other glimmers besides.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is that - even compared to his breakout campaign last term - Mayenda looks to have introduced an added measure of composure and close control to his game. It’s like the difference between a Super NES and a Nintendo 64; he’s graduated from a D-pad to a thumbstick, and all of the dimensional possibilities that brings with it. Just as he did last season, he is steadily establishing himself as a presence capable of creating something of worth from absolutely nothing.

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And that re-emergence feels particularly relevant right now, as we trundle our way through the January transfer window. Ask them, and most Sunderland fans would tell you that they would ideally like to see the club recruit more firepower this month. We are, after all, only human. But the issue with embarking on a quest to sign a striker partway through a season is that most of the options readily available are either: A) significantly overpriced, B) a bit rubbish, or C) both.

As such, if there is a scenario in which Mayenda can continue to stake his claim in a central role, and Le Bris can confidently embrace him once more in his preferred position, then that could prove to be a grand thing - not only for Sunderland’s prospects between now and May, but for their bank balance too.

With three functioning hitmen, all of slightly differing profiles, the Black Cats will surely feel more secure in the attacking threat they can pose, especially as they begin to reintegrate their posse of AFCON internationals back into the fray over the coming days and weeks. Mayenda’s outing in the FA Cup - worthy of a man of the match gong or not - might just have shown that he has what it takes to be that third man.

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