Sunderland have been compared to Championship favourites Leicester City.
Speaking on When You’re Smiling: A Leicester City Podcast, Matt Piper admitted that Sunderland were ‘very similar’ to the Foxes, but doubted their staying power.
Sunderland pitched the youngest starting line-up in the second tier so far against Birmingham City at only 21 years and eight months. The Black Cats were in a similar position last season, where they offloaded the older players and brought in fresh faces such as Pierre Ekwah, Aji Alese and Jewison Bennette.
Albeit with a lot more money, Leicester have gone for a similar approach following their relegation from the Premier League. Enzo Maresca, a very young manager himself, has signed players such as Callum Doyle (19), Issahku Fatawu (19) and Cesare Casadei (20).
It is Leicester that sit top of the Championship table though, 13 points ahead of Sunderland.
Despite the Black Cats’ policy so far proving to be very successful, Matt Piper has doubted their youngsters’ ‘staying power’.
Speaking on the podcast, the former Sunderland man said: “Sunderland are very similar to us; there are quite a lot of young lads and you just think have Sunderland got the staying power? I don’t know they have.”
Do Sunderland have a chance at reaching the play-offs again?
There is no doubt that having a very young squad can have its ups and downs.
This bunch of players are hugely talented and very hungry, but lack of experience definitely effects us in certain areas and we can sometimes pay the price for that.
However, for Matt Piper to suggest we don’t have the ‘staying power’ is a bit uncalled for. Is he forgetting that we reached the play-offs in our first season back in the second tier?
Last season’s squad was also full of young, experienced stars and they reached the play-offs even with a number of key players out injured. If we hadn’t had half our backline out of action, we could well have swapped places with Leicester.
So I’m not sure I understand Piper’s comment at all. Don’t get me wrong, I would be very surprised if we did reach the play-offs, but that’s not anything to do with us. That’s because of the quality of clubs that are battling it out for promotion this season.