One Sunderland star is likely to already be regretting his decision to move to the Stadium of Light amid struggles for playing time.
Sunderland made nine signings during the 2024 summer transfer window and recently secured Aaron Connolly on a free transfer.
Several of those first-team additions have already excelled at the Stadium of Light, though perhaps none more so than Wilson Isidor.
Isidor scored a ‘wonderful’ volley as Sunderland defeated Oxford United last weekend to keep their place atop the Championship table.
He now has four goals in his first nine league outings for the Black Cats and is expected to be pivotal to their promotion push.
Regis Le Bris explained why Isidor is the perfect Sunderland signing recently and it is hard to argue with the claim given his current form.
But while Isidor and a few more new faces have excelled in the North East in 2024/25, one player is really struggling.
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Milan Aleksic struggling for game time at Sunderland
Milan Aleksic joined Sunderland from FK Radnicki 1923 over the summer and big things were expected of him.
Aleksic became Kyril Louis-Dreyfus’ most expensive signing when he joined from Radnicki this summer in a £3million deal.
However, despite big money being paid out for him, Sunderland manager Le Bris is refusing to hand him playing time.
The 19-year-old has been left on the bench for every Championship fixture since his arrival in England.
His only minutes for the club so far came at U21 level, where he played 61 minutes in the Premier League 2 against Everton on September 9th.
Why Milan Aleksic is unlikely to see regular Sunderland minutes anytime soon
After his arrival, Aleksic was dubbed a ‘phenomenal’ young talent who ‘plays like Messi’ by one Serbian coach.
Despite this, he is still yet to play in the league and is likely growing more and more frustrated with each passing week he is left on the bench.
Sunderland face Queens Park Rangers this weekend but the teenager is unlikely to see any action in that tie either.
Aleksic is a versatile central midfielder who can operate all through the middle but right now, there are simply a lot of better options ahead of him.
The likes of Chris Rigg, Jobe Bellingham and Alan Browne are all ahead of Aleksic in the pecking order.
And given Sunderland are in such superb form right now, Le Bris is unlikely to want to make too many changes to his starting eleven, meaning it could be a while before we see the Serbian line out in the Championship