OTD: ADINGRA SIGNED

On this day in 2025, Sunderland completed the signing of Simon Adingra from Brighton.

Adingra was born in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast on New Year's Day in 2002. His first breakthrough in football came with the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana, which is now a multi-club multi-academy group with branches in Egypt and links to FC Nordsjaelland in Denmark, FC Masar in Egypt as well as Major League Soccer outfit San Diego FC. The academy has produced names such as Tottenham Hotspurs’ Mohammed Kudus and Rangers’ Mohammed Diomande.

It was FC Nordsjaelland that utilised their links to the academy to bring Adingra to the Danish town of Farum in 2020, whose stadium is in fact known as ‘Right to Dream Park’. After initially linking up with the youth team the winger quickly progressed to senior level, making his debut against Copenhagen in April 2021, making an immediate impact scoring his sides second in a 2-2 draw with the Danish giants.

The 2021/22 season would see Adingra become a regular, scoring nine in 31 in the Danish Superliga. This caught the attention of Brighton, who’s model is pretty much the same as ours, signing young up and coming talent from smaller leagues to develop and sell on for a profit. He signed a four-year deal but was immediately sent on loan to Union SG in Belgium, the club we signed Noah Sadiki from.

His time in the Belgian Pro League was a positive one scoring 11 in 36 before returning to the south coast for the 23/24 season. It was a solid first full season at the Amex scoring seven times in 40 games in all competitions, as well as winning the African Cup of Nations with the Ivory Coast. Adingra struggled in his second season though, struggling to get in the side over Kaoru Mitoma, scoring just twice in 29 Premier League games, just twelve of those being starts.

Sunderland, as a newly promoted side were on the look out to add a bit of Premier League experience while sticking to the model of signing players with potential sell on value, with Adingra seeming like a perfect fit for that. He moved to Wearside on a five-year deal for a fee in the region of £18 million.

After starting the opening game against West Ham, being the provider for Dan Ballard’s header that put us 2-0 up, he failed to nail down a starting place with Chemsdine Talbi, Enzo Le Fee and Bertrand Traore being preferred to the Ivorian out wide. This led to him being omitted from Ivory Coast’s AFCON squad meaning he would stay at Sunderland and have a great opportunity to cement a position in the side. Apart from a good performance at home to Leeds, which saw him bag his first goal in Red and White, he didn’t really take his chance.

The decision was made to send him out on loan, where he joined Monaco for the remainder of the campaign, with an option to buy included as part of the deal. Despite scoring twice on his home debut he didn’t really set the world alight, finishing his spell without the buy option being triggered.

Adingra’s future is uncertain but he seems unlikely to remain here in the North East. A move that unfortunately just has not seemed to work and a rare flop from last summer’s business. Regis Le Bris demands defensive output from his wingers (Talbi, Traore and Angulo are all good at tracking back) and Adingra just doesn't fit that system.