Mike Dodds admits Sunderland need 'a little more' from misfiring midfielder

Pierre Ekwah has not kicked on as he was expected to this season, and Mike Dodds says he has raised that with the midfielder.

Mike Dodds says he has had an ‘honest conversation’ with Pierre Ekwah to try to unlock the Frenchman’s obvious potential.

Ekwah started out this season looking like a really dominant midfield presence, but he has struggled to assert himself since and found himself dropped for the visit of QPR on Saturday.

He then turned out for the under-21s in the week alongside the likes of Bradley Dack, Corry Evans and Timothee Pembele.

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Dodds is convinced there is still a huge talent in there, but he says he is not seeing enough of it and perhaps a change in attitude is required, as is often the case with young players.

"I’ve had a couple of conversations with Pierre over the last couple of weeks, just about his general performance and I think he’s got huge potential,” Dodds said.

“He’s got a big future in the game but I do also think he’s got certain things that he needs to be better with, and I pride myself on working with young players and improving them.

“I think that sometimes with young players, they need an honest conversation. Pierre and I have had that, I liked some of the things he did when he came on against QPR and he’d trained really, really well in the week leading up to the game.

“He will definitely feature in one of the two games over the Easter weekend. Pierre has got really, really high potential but it’s about him realising that at the moment, it’s just potential. We need to knit his game together a little bit more.”