Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray impressed by Amad Diallo

Posted Thursday, November 03, 2022 by PA

Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray believes Amad Diallo is now establishing himself as a Championship player after scoring again in the 2-0 win at Huddersfield.

On-loan Manchester United winger Diallo netted in stoppage time after Alex Pritchard had opened the scoring against his old club.

The 20-year-old Ivory Coast international, who signed for United in 2021 in a £19million deal from Atalanta, has started four Championship matches for the Black Cats since his loan switch at the end of August and also scored against Burnley 11 days ago.

Mowbray said: “It’s taken Amad a bit of time to make an impact, but he’s not a young unknown.

“Man United bought him from Atalanta for a lot of money and he’s with us to play football and experience the expectation of a big crowd.

“He’s scored two goals now in just over a week and that’s good for the team because I feel I have unearthed another starter now.

“He’s gone past the stage where he’s a young lad who needs blooding. I was also pleased for Alex Pritchard scoring a good goal, because it’s difficult going to an old club and he was getting pelters from their supporters.”

Mowbray was not as happy with his side’s overall display on a wet and windy night in West Yorkshire, though, adding that he felt it was the worst since he succeeded Alex Neil just over two months ago.

“Our performance levels have to be miles better and it was probably the poorest performance since I have been here,” he said.

“Huddersfield moved the ball around well and caused us problems and our performance was like the weather – not very good at all.

“But it’s great to get three points in the bag knowing that we are miles better than we showed.”

Huddersfield boss Mark Fotheringham was left lamenting two more injuries to his depleted squad, with Japan international Yuta Nakayama and Ben Jackson both being stretchered off.

Nakayama could now miss the World Cup, having switched from left-back to centre-back for this game with Tom Lees a late withdrawal.

But Fotheringham, whose team are bottom of the table, was also encouraged by his patched-up side’s performance.

He said: “I woke up this morning and found out Tom Lees had Covid and he’s probably one of the best defenders in the league at the moment and a big reason why we have been keeping clean sheets, but the lads who came in did ever so well and Brodie Spencer was excellent. It was his debut and he’s 18 but he performed like a man.

“On another day, Holmesy (Duane Holmes) would have scored the one-on-one. Instead, they scored on the counter-attack but we can see that we are looking more solid and aggressive and Sunderland did not cause us too many problems.

“The late goal was disappointing but it came when we were still pushing for an equaliser, so it was an unfortunate night and we are not performing like a team that is bottom of the league.”