Salis Abdul Samed could be Sunderland's midfield game changer

Yesterday at 01:00 AM

The Ghanaian international has yet to make a first team appearance for Sunderland, but as we continue to seek balance in midfield, he could add some real value.

As we prepare to resume our league campaign at Hull City in front of the Sky Sports cameras this coming Sunday, we're in the somewhat unusual position of being top of the table and in encouraging form, yet with plenty of unknowns surrounding our late summer signings.

Welsh international Chris Mepham has already made a hugely positive impression, forming a promising partnership with Luke O'Nien at the heart of the defence, but fellow deadline-beating signings Milan Aleksić, Ahmed Abdullahi and Salis Abdul Samed have yet to make an impact at first team level in red and white.

Granted, it's not exactly problematic at this stage, and we're not going to be pinning our hopes on these lads to haul us out of the mire when they're finally deemed ready. When the time comes, they'll hopefully be phased into a Sunderland first team that's on the up, playing good football, and with everyone feeling good about what the future might hold.

Indeed, there's plenty of intrigue surrounding the players mentioned above, and particularly around Ghanaian international Samed, signed on loan from Lens for the 2024/2025 campaign.

As the 'bring him home' movement concerning Jordan Henderson continues to simmer (on a side note, which five or six first team players are we jettisoning in order to meet his probable wage expectations? Answers on a postcard) is Samed is being slightly overlooked as we await the Sunderland debut of a player with Champions League experience and someone who, as Roker Report's Dan Harrison wrote upon his arrival, would seem to tick a multitude of boxes for us?

Personally, I'm very excited to see what he can offer, and if his ball-winning ability, work rate and willingness to do the hard yards in the central defensive midfield role are as good as we all hope, an area of potential weakness could be covered off.

The wider point here is that midfield remains an area in which improvements can and doubtless will be made as the season rolls on.

Our attack looks sharp, our defence looks resilient, and indeed, there have been times this season when the engine room has functioned well, with a reborn Jobe and the experienced Alan Browne starting the campaign in impressive form.

That said, Régis Le Bris is clearly not a head coach given to complacency and he'll know that at times, and particularly against Leeds United, we've perhaps lacked the crucial element of control that can often decide games at this level.

With Dan Neil still searching for his best form and likely to thrive in a more advanced role, Samed's eventual availability should enable Le Bris to tweak things in the middle.

Despite our excellent start to the season, we've yet to witness a game during which the Lads have dictated the tempo and controlled the ball dominantly for the majority of the ninety minutes, but it's certainly fixable and Samed could be the man to help us do just that.

As exciting as it is, full throttle football won't be the answer every week, and developing an all-round game and the ability to show composure and to close out tight matches will go a long way to defining whether promotion is a genuine possibility this season.

Over the past decade or so, Sunderland's search for an elusive, powerhouse defensive midfielder has often taken on the feel of a plot from an Indiana Jones movie, so forlorn was the quest and so difficult did we often find it.

Players came and went, often showing early promise and then fading, or simply not fitting in for whatever reason, and the search went on, with the fans desperate to find 'The Man' who'd cure our ills in that area of the pitch.

Could this be different? Let's hope so.

Once he's good to go, Samed could certainly provide the steel to augment the undoubted skill that we already boast.

As we've seen already this season, we're extremely close to having a starting eleven that would be considered among the best in the league, and his eventual presence will only make that case even more strongly.

This isn't an easy team to fight your way into, but there's clearly a plan to make use of the Ghanaian and when he does eventually make his Lads bow, he'll hopefully show exactly why we were eager to secure his services for 2024/2025.