The interesting new behind the scenes role Lee Johnson has handed to Jordan Willis as defender battles injury

Willis suffered a ruptured patella tendon at Shrewsbury Town in February of this year, which had initially been expected to sideline him for six months.

But a second rupture during surgery came as a major setback, all but ruling out his chances of playing again this season.

Willis, however, has been handed a new role behind the scenes at Sunderland as the defender recovers at the Academy of Light.

“Jordan has been tasked with the opposition analysis. For the Papa John’s games, Jordan was both analysing the opposition but also delivering full stop meetings.

"That’s basically just the post-match review and that went well. I think he enjoyed that and I think he appreciated how difficult it was as well.

"To be able to work with all of the technology is a lot of work. We do 40 hours of analysis that we have to condense into a six-minute video after a training session.”

Asked if Willis will continue to help Sunderland with their analysis of opposition teams before games, Johnson said: “Yeah. I think he enjoys it. He has enjoyed delivering it back to the players, and looking at strengths and weaknesses.

"I think his next step is to learn the technology as it’s not easy and there’s a lot of detail that goes into that and it takes a lot of time to illuminate a performance.”

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