Sunderland summer recruit 'not far off' first involvement

Ian Poveda signed for Sunderland then seemed to vanish off the face of the planet, but Regis Le Bris says he is close to making his debut.

Ian Poveda - still awaiting Sunderland debut /

Summer signing Ian Poveda is ‘not too far off’ featuring for Sunderland, but he is unlikely to feature against former club Sheffield Wednesday this weekend. 

Poveda joined on a free transfer from Leeds United this summer, but he is yet to play a second for the Black Cats, even in preseason friendlies. 

That is due to an abundance of caution from Sunderland with a player who has struggled to stay fit before, meaning he has always found it tough to play week in, week out. 

Sunderland are determined to see a repeat of that, especially after handing him a three-year contract this summer. 

“He's getting better and trained this week with the team, full training sessions,” Le Bris said.

“He's not really ready at the moment but not too far off, maybe 80 or 90%. We want to build strong foundations for the whole season and to be able to play 90 minutes, not just him being available for 10 or 20 minutes. 

“He wasn't involved in pre-season so we know the foundations aren't there so we want to be sure that he will be in the best way to start.”

Poveda is part of a strong quintet of Sunderland wingers and appears to be seen as a reliable contributor alongside Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts. 

The other two, Abdoullah Ba and Romaine Mundle, struggled to make an impact in the EFL Cup against Preston, and Le Bris says they need to find more reliability in their final product before they start pushing for regular starts.

“For them, the consistency and the ability to create danger. I think they have a specific talent to create unbalance, but they are still young in their game.”

“The next step is the efficiency, the capacity to deliver key passes, to score, to cross and so on. At the moment, they need to reach this step to be more involved in the first team, I think.”