Tony Mowbray has broken his own record at Sunderland this season.
As per BBC Sport, the average age of Sunderland’s starting line-up was only 21 years and eight months old.
This makes it the youngest XI in the Championship so far this season, beating the previous youngest team – Sunderland’s eleven that beat QPR in September.
Tony Mowbray was forced to dramatically bring the line-up’s age down at the weekend, with Dan Ballard and Luke O’Nien both suspended after picking up five yellow cards each.
Jenson Seelt was set for his first start since joining Sunderland, while 20-year-old Nectarios Triantis was brought in at the last minute to replaced the injured Dennis Cirkin.
The pair joined the likes of Jobe Bellingham (18), Pierre Ekwah (21) and Jack Clarke (22), while Patrick Roberts was the oldest player in red and white at only 26 years old.
It is far from the first time Sunderland have named the youngest average XI in the Championship, with Mowbray actually claiming ten of the youngest teams so far this season. Their oldest average XI was still only 23 years and seven months.
Speaking to BBC Radio Newcastle, Mowbray admitted that he is very cautious about playing too many inexperienced youngsters.
He said: “There’s a fine balance and that is what I’m trying to get right.
“We’re excited by these young players. But my ultimate call is whether I think they’re ready to start in front of this player or that player.
“We are trying to win football matches. We have 40,000 supporters and they come here to hopefully see Sunderland win, not just Sunderland giving a a load of young guys their debuts.”
Can Sunderland succeed with kids?
Sunderland have done extremely well to battle for play-offs on two occasions since winning promotion, especially with the age of their players.
It is often the lack of experience and age that lets teams down towards the end of a season, but the Black Cats could well have won the play-offs last time out if it wasn’t for injuries.
It is Sunderland’s young players that have shone the most this season, with Jobe getting a special mention for a brilliant start to life on Wearside.
However, it is very clear that we couldn’t just play youngsters in every position every week. While Luke O’Nien has received criticism in the past, we definitely missed him at the back against Birmingham.
It does seem like the club are trying to force out the older players such as Danny Batth and Alex Pritchard though, and I’m afraid that that could come back to bite us.