Could Sunderland exits for Pierre Ekwah and Milan Aleksić be good for them?

Both players have been linked with moves away from the club in recent days; is this the right decision as we prepare for the Premier League?

John Wilson says…

As is often the case with these topics, we don’t see what the coaches see on and off the practice field, so we can only go by what we see on a Saturday afternoon, and we must ultimately believe the coaching staff, their expertise, and game knowledge—which I do. I completely understand the Aleksić loan move. He’s still a young boy who was trying to break into the Championship setup, so expecting him to be in a competitive position for the Premier League right now may be too much to ask. That being said, we should keep an eye on him since he has the potential to be a very excellent player, and he demonstrates speed, effort, and technique.

Ekwah is more problematic—the difficulty is that I like him! Of course, he wasn’t the final thing (thus the loan move), and he needed to improve his tracking back, but as an example, I took a Manchester United acquaintance to the Stadium of Light several times when Ekwah was playing. I’m always curious what acquaintances with no connection to Sunderland think, and on several occasions, he said, “Who’s he?” or “I like him”. He even learnt his name for the first time, and under Tony Mowbray, Ekwah was class (not to overdo the phrase). I even wanted my song to take off: “Voulez vous coucher avec moi…Ekwah!”

Sadly, it’s not to be, but we have to trust in the wisdom of those in charge, and let’s be clear: there’s a player there and I hope it doesn’t come back to haunt us.

Photo by Sathire Kelpa/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

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Mark Wood says…

I believe Aleksić would benefit from a season-long loan to gain consistent playing time. He’s been on the outskirts of our first team since he arrived, but he’s always been limited to cameo appearances, and when he was given starts — particularly near the end of the season — he didn’t seize the opportunity. It will not be much simpler in the Premier League, and depending on how our summer recruitment goes, he may find himself shoved lower down the pecking order. As a result, a season abroad in more familiar settings will only benefit his development.

With Ekwah, I recall the player who first burst into our team at the end of the 2022/223 season with some barnstorming performances — Luton at home in the playoff semi-final, for example — and then repeated it at the start of the following season. Remember his effort and two goals in the 5-0 defeat over Southampton? That was the best he could hope for. Following that, he had the longest lasting ‘dead leg’ in medical history, and we never saw him bring his ‘A game’ back. For someone who played more than fifty games for us, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times we saw him come that to the park, which is a real pity because when he did he looked like ‘the man’ in our midfield.

He appeared raw, yet he could receive and turn with the ball surrounded by opposing players, similar to Jobe Bellingham, but his ordinary or below-par performances far exceeded his good. Another question that we can only guess at is why he was unable to regularly generate high-quality performances on the pitch. It is worth noting that when he joined us two and a half years ago, he was only 21, yet Sunderland was his third senior club in England — and fourth overall if Nantes is included. Furthermore, we were the team that handed him his senior debut in any capacity, and a few statements piqued my interest.

One came from Régis Le Bris when he originally went out on loan, and I believe he stated that Ekwah appeared to believe he should be playing at the highest level in Europe. Then Tony Mowbray remarked about not being able to integrate some of our ‘overseas’ players into the first-team system, despite the fact that he seemed to be happy in France and had a solid season with relegated St Etienne in Ligue 1. So, may his mental attitude on Wearside explain why he didn’t join us when he had the tools? We can only speculate.

He wouldn’t be the first player that showed a lot of promise at first but didn’t play to their potential, and we had plenty of them the last time we were in the Premier League. Now at twenty three, he needs to go somewhere and grasp the opportunity with both hands, as I can’t see him getting game time here.

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