Sunderland's Ahmed Abdullahi plan explained after striker makes impressive return from injury

Régis Le Bris says Sunderland are looking for a period of consistency from striker Ahmed Abdullahi before assessing whether he is ready for greater first-team involvement.

Abdullahi made only his second appearance in a first-team squad this season as Sunderland were beaten in the FA Cup fifth round on Port Vale on Sunday, but was an unused substitute as he was against Huddersfield Town in the Carabao Cup earlier in the campaign. The 21-year-old then featured for the club's U21 side at Eppleton on Monday, scoring a brace in an impressive 5-2 win over Leeds United. Abdullahi had scored on his previous outing for the U21s since his latest return from injury, underlining the potential that convinced Sunderland to sign him from Belgian club Gent in the summer of 2025.

He has been prolific at U21 level when fitness has allowed him to feature, and remains a player Sunderland believe can have a good future in the game. However, after his initial return to the U21s, Le Bris said it was important not to rush the striker and that the club wanted to see an uninterrupted spell of full training and perhaps extended U21 action before considering greater senior involvement.

Le Bris explained: "We're just looking for consistency for Ahmed, for full training [for a period of time], a couple of games with the U21s maybe. If he can reach that level, then we'll see. But at the minute it hasn't been the case for him [so we need to see it]."

Abdullahi's first season on Wearside was disrupted by pre-planned groin surgery following his arrival for a seven-figure fee, with the striker suffering a difficult recovery even if the underlying muscle issue was corrected. The striker played in the early stages of pre-season before seeing a potentially valuable loan move to Ligue 1 club Angers fall through when the transfer was blocked by the French football authorities on financial grounds. Further, minor injury issues followed but Sunderland and Abdullahi now hope he can get train consistently between now and the end of the campaign to build some momentum ahead of what will be a crucial pre-season period for the youngster.

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U21s boss Graeme Murty reacts to impressive win over Leeds United

Abdullahi played just over an hour in the win over Leeds, with Abdoullah Ba and Milan Aleksic also getting minutes.

Boss Graeme Murty said he was pleased with the result given the number of changes to his XI: “Interesting game, very, very disjointed, I thought, because of so many changes and so many dropped in from the first team. As we kind of expected, the lads accommodated that quite well. We played some really, really good stuff, and we played some stuff that was really clunky.

“Against a young Leeds team, I thought were really aggressive and really intense. They brought real good physicality, and I really enjoyed watching them play. I enjoyed the game, if I'm honest, and I thought that we showed once again our ability to be clinical in critical moments of the game. That enabled us to take the game away from Leeds a little bit.”

The win was the seventh in a row for the U21s in all competitions, which means they are in the Premier League cup semi final and are now well placed to reach the league play-offs at the end of the campaign.

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