Tony Mowbray names the Sunderland youngster who took a big step forward in U21s defeat

The Black Cats lost 1-0 to Leeds United with a team made up predominantly of players from the first-team group in need of regular minutes.

A strong Leeds United side preserved their position at the top of the table with the win at the Stadium of Light but Mowbray was pleased with what he saw.

And Michut's contribution was timely, given that Corry Evans is suspended for this Saturday's visit of Wigan Athletic.

The PSG loanee has expressed his preference for playing as the deepest-lying midfielder and after missing out at Swansea City, Mowbray has heavily hinted that he will at the very least be in the 18 this weekend.

The head coach said: "My dilemmas really are around, do we replace Corry with a real technician? So if you saw the U21 games on Monday night against Leeds United, Edouard Michut showed what a lovely footballer is, passing the ball between the lines. He was competitive in the game and I think he covered 13 kilometres as well.

"He showed me there that he's not far away from a first-team footballer.

"Do we bring Dennis Cirkin in and rearrange the midfield? Have we got someone who can do what Corry does, how many defensive-minded midfield players do we need in the team? These are the things that I need to think about.

"Wigan's main strength is getting the ball out wide and putting it in your box, they're dangerous with that and the best way to stop that is probably to keep the ball off them, so do we need a lot of technical players to keep the ball?

"We'll make that call over the next couple of days.

"I thought that all of the young lads who got 90 minutes are progressing and getting closer [to starting], that was a really high-quality Leeds United team that cost a lot of money."

Mowbray has also considered moving Dan Neil into Evans' role for the visit of Wigan.