Sunderland players’ pre-season minutes as Black Cats use 46 …
Sunderland Championship campaign kicks off against Ipswich Town this weekend, with last night’s 5-2 defeat at Hartlepool United bringing down the curtain on their pre-season programme. Tony Mowbray’s[1] side played seven friendlies across 25 days, beginning on July 8 at National League North newcomers South Shields and ending just down the A19 at Hartlepool United, who were relegated from League Two to the National League last season.
The pre-season schedule featured fairly low-grade opposition, with three games against non-league opposition in England, two second tier sides and one third tier side in the USA, and only one game against a top flight team in the shape of Spanish La Liga outfit RCD Mallorca at the Stadium of Light. The fact that the games were spread over two continents, involving more than 11,000 miles of travelling by road, rail, and air, and with the games in America played in very high temperatures, was hardly ideal and Mowbray has admitted that the trans-Atlantic crossings in particular took its toll on his players.
But Sunderland[2] ended up with a creditable record of five wins and one draw before slipping up at Pools. In the early part of pre-season, Sunderland won 4-3 against Julio Arca’s South Shields, and then 3-2 at Gateshead later the same day.
They then headed Stateside to Texas where they beat San Antonio 3-1, then on to Albuquerque where they beat New Mexico United 3-2, and then rounded off the USA leg of pre-season with a 4-2 win against North Carolina FC in Cary. After returning to the UK, they drew 1-1 with Mallorca in their only home friendly, before Tuesday’s reverse at Victoria Park.
Along the way, Mowbray used an incredible 46 players – albeit around 20 of those were youngsters from the academy, the majority of whom did not feature again after the double-header against South Shields and Gateshead. Injuries notwithstanding, it is no surprise that the men who played the most pre-season minutes are the ones who will form the core of Mowbray’s first-team squad next season.
Of those, goalkeeper Anthony Patterson played more minutes (389) than any other player and he was the only man to complete three full 90 minute games, with Abdoullah Ba (327 minutes) the outfielder who played the most minutes. Most of the core outfielders played two full games, the exceptions being Jack Clarke, Patrick Roberts, Dan Ballard, and new arrivals Jobe Bellingham and Hemir, who each played one full 90 minute game.
How many minutes each Sunderland player played in pre-season 2023
Niall Huggins played just one full game as he eased his way back in after a long-term injury, while Dennis Cirkin played only 72 minutes across pre-season as a whole as he returned from an ankle injury. Midfielder Jay Matete was another senior player who did not complete a full game, although in his case it was because he picked up a knee injury while out in the USA, while ankle problems restricted new Dutch defender Jenson Seelt to only one 45 minute appearance.
Two more new arrivals, midfielder Bradley Dack and striker Eliezer Mayenda, did not feature in pre-season at all. In Dack’s case he is still building up his fitness having left Blackburn Rovers over the summer, while Spaniard Mayenda picked up a hamstring strain during his first training session with his new club last week.
Only four players – Patterson, Ba, Jewison Bennette, and Dan Neil – played more than 300 minutes, or five hours, of pre-season, with Luke O’Nien and Lynden Gooch falling just short. The three men to have featured but played the least amount of pre-season football were academy men Luke Bell, Tom Chiabi, and Jack Whittaker, who each made 12-minute cameos at Gateshead.
References
- ^ Tony Mowbray’s (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Sunderland (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
- ^ Sunderland are ‘close’ to making a senior off-field appointment (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)