One player currently on loan from Sunderland had a tricky clash with European royalty that saw his side ship six goals.
Sunderland have got many players currently spending time away from Wearside on loan elsewhere, all of which have had fairly differing levels of success.
One man who has been superb whilst away from the Stadium of Light in the 2024/25 season is newly-named Australian international Nectarios Triantis. Midfielder Triantis has been superb for Hibernian in the Scottish Premiership and has put on several performances that could throw him into Regis Le Bris’ plans for the next campaign.
Timothee Pembele has struggled for Le Havre, but he recently bagged a winning goal for the French side, a sign that he may have turned his career around.
Another player that has endured a difficult spell is Pierre Ekwah, who plays for St Etienne. Ekwah finds himself in a relegation battle with St Etienne, and things went from bad to worse at the weekend, where they suffered an incredibly heavy defeat.
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Sunderland loanee Pierre Ekwah on the end of huge defeat vs PSG
With Ekwah’s St Etienne sat in 17th (out of 18) in Ligue 1 before their game, the last thing they needed was for table-toppers Paris Saint-Germain to visit, who were on a seven-game league winning streak.
Unsurprisingly, PSG shrugged Ekwah’s St Etienne to the side, running away as 6-1 victors in the tie, with the Sunderland loanee struggling severely, alongside all of his compatriots.
Per SofaScore, Ekwah received plenty of the ball in the centre-of-the-park, notching 80 touches and making 56 passes, however, his play was far from progressive, having only made three long ball passes and not a single key pass.
Has Pierre Ekwah shown enough to be reinstated into Black Cats first team
Whilst some players currently plying their trade away from Sunderland have shown their quality on a consistent basis, and given a real sell to Le Bris that they should be part of his first-team plans, it is a struggle to come up with an argument for Ekwah doing that this season.
Ekwah has shown quality at times, but overall, it has been a difficult season in a poor Ligue 1 side staring down the barrel of relegation to the second tier.
It would take a monumental improvement at this point if we were to see Ekwah become an integral part of Le Bris’ side.