The Pierre Ekwah interview Sunderland fans will love as ex-West Ham youth reflects on Wearside journey so far

Pierre Ekwah has the broadest grin as he recalls the moment he realised what he'd signed up for.

He'd barely kicked a ball and yet people knew exactly who he was when he arrived at the Stadium of Light; they even wanted him to sign their shirt.

"Are you sure?" was genuinely his first thought.

"I really felt straightway that I was here at one of the biggest clubs in the country," he says.

There was another one of those moments not long after he signed, emerging from the tunnel at Fulham to see a wall of support behind the goal.

Ekwah had a sense of Sunderland, he had watched the Netflix documentary and he had older brothers who remembered well when they had been an established Premier League side. Even so, his assumption had been that maybe after relegation, the numbers and the passion might dwindle a little.

"They are literally following you wherever you go," he says, grinning again.

"And when I say everywhere you go, I mean everywhere you go. When we went to Fulham, I went out onto the pitch and I just saw a wall. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy’. I really felt that, and the fanbase of Sunderland has really shocked me.

"I absolutely love playing at the stadium. I know when I am playing at home, I’m going to have goosebumps. There are 45,000 people there, they just want you to win, and the atmosphere is crazy."

It's that pressure and that opportunity that convinced Ekwah to become the latest talented player to leave the relative comfort zone of a big Premier League Academy and U21s football for Wearside.

He had kept a keen eye on former team-mate Aji Alese's progress and after talking with Kristjaan Speakman and Tony Mowbray, his verdict was that 'he had to get up here'.

The 21-year-old needed time to get to this point, where he will more than likely be in the starting XI when Sunderland begin their play-off campaign against Luton Town.

Ekwah insists there was no real frustration in those early months, though, and just a recognition that he would have to bide his time and take the chance when it came.

"I think it helped that I got a good amount of time to see all the other players and see how the team was going," he explains.

"Before I came, the team was doing really well, so you can’t just come up from the U21 squad [at West Ham] and expect to play, which I didn’t.

"I just think the coach and the staff really helped me and took their time perfectly with my development. They gave me the team I needed to feel good, and put me on at the right time. They brought me in bit by bit, and after I got my first start at Burnley, everything then seemed to go well. I was starting games, and I just think they did a great job with me. I wasn’t frustrated at all because the team was doing really well before I was there."

There was some understandable frustration on Wearside that Ekwah was not being used more, particularly on afternoons where it seemed as if Sunderland's lack of physicality was costing them.

Mowbray knew that, too, but he didn't yet feel Ekwah was ready. The head coach jokes that the midfielder must have been fed up of him, constantly on at him in training to use his body and to bring the intensity off the ball to match his quality on it.

Ekwah is brilliant company, as amiable and relaxed as a footballer as you will ever meet, and so perhaps it's no surprise that this wasn't necessarily his natural game.

“It was something I definitely took on board," he reflects.

"Coming from the U21s to the Championship, it’s a massive change. First of all, we all know that English football is really physical anyway, but that’s even more the case in the Championship.

"I needed to get that switch, which I think I’ve just about got my head around now. Now, I think I’m a lot more physical than I was before. Everything he said about me and told me, I really took it in and tried to show him how I had changed on the pitch, whether that was in training or in a game."

Now, Mowbray says, players stay away from Ekwah in training.

Ekwah's progress since that debut against Burnley has been impressive but it hasn't been a purely upward curve. Sunderland were seconds away from sealing a vital win against Hull City when Ekwah fouled, the subsequent penalty meaning two potentially vital points slipped through the Black Cats' grasp.

So it was significant that when Sunderland arrived in Cardiff two days later, Ekwah started.

A show of faith from Mowbray, and a chance for Ekwah to bounce straight back. The 21-year-old feels it's an example of why Sunderland have the spirit that has carried them to play-offs despite all the injury adversity they have faced.

“It shows everything about him," Ekwah says.

"When I started against Cardiff, I got a couple of messages from friends and family straightaway saying, ‘I really like your coach because of what he has done for you. Not a lot of other people would have done it’.

"I came on for maybe ten minutes, gave away the penalty and we drew 4-4 because of that penalty. But then the next game, you’re starting. The trust he puts in you really means a lot. You know that he’s not going to change his opinion of you just because of one mistake.

"He still trusts you, and when he put me back in the team, he told me that he still trusted me to go out and express myself. That’s why he’s a good man, and it’s why everyone will fight for him.

"You saw that in the last game – everyone was celebrating together at the end. Little things, and little details during the season, can make something big and create a situation where you can do something big because of that."

Ekwah breaks out into another laugh, shaking his head when asked to consider the prospect of potentially playing in front of 90,000 for a place in the Premier League in just a couple of weeks time.

'Crazy,' he says again.

Sunderland have a major hurdle to clear before they can properly think about that, a Luton Town side who are 14 unbeaten and have enjoyed another outstanding campaign.

One thing Ekwah's enthusiasm underlines is that this is a young side who won't fear the challenge, and who will leave it all out on the pitch.

Whatever happens, it seems clear that the future of Sunderland's midfield is in safe hands: Ekwah is only just getting started.