Tony Mowbray has explained why Jewison Bennette hasn’t been playing for Sunderland.
Speaking to the Sunderland Echo, the Black Cats boss admitted that it was often the winger’s decision to be left out of the first-team squad.
Jewison Bennette arrived on Wearside from Costa Rican side C.S. Herediano last summer and quickly looked to be a very promising prospect as he made 15 appearances in his first campaign, including netting an important late equaliser against Watford.
The youngster went onto impress even further this season when he produced three Maradona spins before assisting Chris Rigg to make it 5-0 to Sunderland against Southampton back in September.
However, that has proven to be Bennette’s only appearance so far this season and he has since only been named on the bench three times. The attacker hasn’t made the match-day squad since the 4-0 defeat to Middlesbrough, while he has featured five times for the U21 team.
Mowbray has now explained that Bennette would actually prefer to play for the youth side than rely on a brief cameo appearance with the seniors.
“Jewison is fine, these squad issues are going to be around [as players return] and I have to make the decisions as to who is going to play and who isn’t,” Mowbray said.
“I’ve had a few conversations with Jewison, he wants to be playing football and he doesn’t want his international situation with Costa Rica to be disturbed too much. That’s why he’s been playing for the U21s, because if he sits on our bench and gets a few minutes… he might as well get 90 minutes with the U21s. These are the discussions I’ve had with him.
“I would never push him to go and play in the U21s, we have discussed it and his attitude is that it is better to get 90 minutes on a Friday night than five minutes or no minutes the next day. That is a huge credit to him, and it is only going to stand him in good stead moving forward. At his age, he just needs to be playing football. That’s what the kid wants to do – so I would view it as a real positive. It says a lot about him, it’s positive.”
What should Sunderland do with Jewison Bennette?
Jewison Bennette has scored once and provided two assists in the five games he has played for Sunderland U21s.
He is clearly a huge talent but still looks extremely raw and quite a distance from regularly featuring under Mowbray.
With the likes of Jack Clarke, Patrick Roberts, Abdoullah Ba and Adil Aouchiche all impressing, while the Black Cats have already been linked with further attacking reinforcements, it’s hard to see where Bennette will fit in anytime soon.
I see no harm in sending him out on loan in January, just so he can pick up some important experience in the third or fourth tier. He needs regular football and is going to struggle to adapt to life here if he is rarely playing competitive games in front of thousands of people.