The Chronicle reports that Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce believes their January signings have been crucial to the positive football shown by the team as of late.
Four of his five new signings played a big part in their 2-2 draw at Anfield on Saturday, with Wahbi Khazri and Dame N’Doye playing on opposite wings towards the end of the game in order to grab a late draw, the former starting and playing the whole 90 minutes, winning the free kick for Adam Johnson’s goal and some lovely skill to set up Jermain Defoe for the second. Jan Kirchhoff was unable to follow up on his performance against title challengers Manchester City but is showing promising signs, whilst centre-back Lamine Kone played a big role in keeping the home side at bay.
Allardyce also commented on the new lads, saying:
The point will be hugely important, as the new players could be. I do believe in the short period of time they’ve been here they’ve added some quality to the squad. Kone’s defending is exceptionally good – he probably won more headers than anybody in the team in areas where it would have caused us more problems in the past than it did. When you think Wahbi’s just come from Bordeaux and slotted in on the left-hand side with the energy and ability he did, N’Doye up front has experienced the Premier League before and scored five goals for Hull at the back end of last season. The fact we didn’t play as well against Liverpool may have been because Jan felt the pace a little bit. He was the mainstay of all that was good for us against Man City but I think he felt the pace of this game a little too quick for him because he hadn’t fully recovered from Tuesday night.
The Black Cats follow up their tough run by hosting Louis Van Gaal’s Manchester United on Saturday at 12:45, a team who have finally begun to find form under the Dutchman. Hopefully, the new signings play a big part in picking up some vital points in the run into the final games of the season.
