RR’s End of Season Awards: Who was Sunderland’s best young player of the season?

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Young Player of the Season: Nominees

Matty Crichton: Matty Young

Yes, you read it correctly. I’m choosing someone who may not have made an appearance for Sunderland’s first team this season, but someone who looks set to hopefully make many in the future.

Matty Young’s name first emerged in pre-season to our complete surprise, Alex Bass had been loaned out, Nathan Bishop had not yet signed and with Under-21s starting goalie Adam Richardson injured, we got to see a 16-year-old in the first team during our American tour.

Of course, it was too early for Young to challenge Anthony Patterson, but instead, he went out on loan to a struggling Darlington team and helped them avoid relegation, winning their Young Player of the Year award.

When you add to that he also won a trophy playing for England at youth level, it really was a remarkable first season in men’s football so someone we had never heard of.

Next season once again I doubt we will Matty Young, but like Jordan Pickford did at a very young age, I expect him to continue to rise up the levels on loan and even somewhere locally like Gateshead would be perfect to see him play at a higher level, but still be able to train with Sunderland’s first-team most of the week.

It will certainly be interesting to see what next year brings for one of Sunderland’s most promising academy talents.

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Ian Bendelow: Adil Aouchiche

Sunderland’s recruitment model over the last couple of years has centred around almost exclusively signing players still eligible for a half on the bus to town. You’d think, therefore that choosing a young player of the season would be much easier than it was.

So sadly the well is almost dry on this one, and therefore I’ll go for Adil Aouchiche, because he was a) partially trusted by the coaching staff and b) looked lively in sorts during some matches.

However, part of the problem over the course of the last season is that too many of the younger lads just didn’t get a consistent run in the side. Aouchiche was one of them, but his potential is clear to see, and is certainly on player I would be happy to see in the first team next season.

We mustn’t harp back to the fact he played a solitary game for Paris St Germain, but it remains the truth - as is the case with Pembélé - that this man was trusted from a young age to shoulder the responsibility of playing for one of the best sides in the world.

Now you’d think as he’s rocked up at Sunderland he’d either put on an exorbitant amount of weight, or had a gargantuan attitude problem. This certainly isn’t evident from what he displayed on the pitch this season. So I say come back in the pre-season looking to nail down that first team place and kick on.

Congratulations on your nomination, Adil.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

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Ewan Bowman: Chris Rigg

Another one who is destined for the Premier League is Chris Rigg.

A brilliantly talented player, Rigg made 21 league appearances last season and scored 2 goals. He also captains England U17s and is highly thought of on Wearside and afar.

He is a player that we simply have to tie down this summer to a professional contract and will no doubt kick on next season if he stays.

We have to build the team around him — he is skillful, can dribble past players and keeps the ball really well, and has popped up with a goal or two. He has all the attributes to be an all round top class midfielder.

All the big clubs are looking at him and tying down Rigg to a new contract has to be a priority at the club, because he is just going to get better and better.

Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images

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Malc Dugdale: Tommy Watson

Our club is so young at first team level, it is hard to pick who to go with here, but if you really think about the future of the club you cannot go far wrong when suggesting Tommy Watson as someone to consider for this award.

Tom played the bulk of his football this season in the Premier League 2 division, which is no mean feat at the tender age of 17 (an age he hit last October). In that competition the talented young wideman featured in eleven games (2 as sub), and notched 3 goals and 3 assists. He also had three run-outs for the club at U18 Premier League level, scoring in two of them.

Away from League action, Tom scored a hatty against Boro in the FA youth cup back in December, and at national level, he had two games for England at age group level, plus one on the bench.

The lad has had a very good season, a point that cannot be debated. Not something that all fans would spot, but I would bet a good few scouts across the premier league and championship will be keeping close tabs on him.

The real shame about Watson though is that he wasn’t given as much of a chance in the first eleven as he maybe could have been in my view. He is as good for me out wide as the likes of Chris Rigg are at their favoured position. We played Rigg a fair bit, and he deserved it, but I think we could have given Tommy more time than his token 5 mins in the already-lost Sheff Wed final home game.

That lack of game time seems to be down to two main reasons. The first reason is simple - his competition is Jack Clarke, who is one of the first names on the team sheet. Such a classy understudy should definitely have been given more of a chance though. His style of play is very like Clarke’s, and if we are a club that embraces youth, in my view he could have shared the minutes on the left with Clarke and others, especially during the Feb to early April period that Clarke was laid up.

The second reason is circumstance - when we released Beale and gave Dodds the caretaker head coach role for the rest of the season, Dodds decided to shut up shop and stop playing football. A lot of the younger lads missed out, with the likes of Dack and Burstow getting time on the pitch, which was of no value to the club at all. If Mike Dodds has a decent set of family jewels he would have used the tail end games to give way more time to Watson and other hot young prospects (striker Ogunsiyi deserved a pop too, for me), but Dodds totally bottled that concept, to all our frustrations.

If we want to keep hold of future talents like Tommy, we need to give them contracts and reward strong performances with time on the grass for the 1st XI when chance arises. Hopefully this won’t come back to bite us later and we can give this lad a decent contract and more game time next season.

For now though, he deserves at least a shout for this gong.

Photo by Martin Swinney/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

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Bomber: Jobe Bellingham

Young Player of the Season is a difficult one for Sunderland. We have such a young squad throughout that when asked for my nomination I immediately discounted everyone except Rigg and Watson, when in reality there are over a dozen contenders who meet the age requirement of 21 and under.

For me, there is only really one player for the nomination. As I’ve mentioned in the ‘Goal of the Season’ write-up, Jobe is a player who can put in the type of performances that make you forget he is just 18 years old, and any player that has that ability is one worth keeping a close eye on.

Whilst his form dropped for short periods during the campaign, this coincided with the team itself losing its way, and during a manager-admitted requirement for a rest that just wasn’t forthcoming... and in reality, what 17/18 year old talent doesn’t have fluctuations in form?

The fact remains, that what he has managed to do in his first season at the club, having come in as a 17-year old, makes him worthy of nomination for young player of the season. The previous season, Birmingham limited him very much to cameo appearances and was the epitome of a “bit-part” player for them - playing more than 15 minutes on just three occasions, and only getting more of a run in the team out of necessity in April. So for him to then not only make the move to the Stadium of Light and all the pressures that comes with playing here, he has had to make the jump from playing 600 minutes of Championship football, to 3600 minutes and appearing in all-but-one match in a turbulent and sometimes hostile season.

He’s had to play Striker, Attacking Midfielder, Holding Midfielder, and a few run outs on the left wing... Yet even with all this going on, he still managed to return seven goals and an assist, making Jobe the best performing Championship player under the age of 20 this season. Despite the ups and downs in performances, the ups were just that good that he is easily my Young Player of the Season.