After another great performance for the French youngster at Loftus Road, Abdoullah Ba seems to have stapled his place into the side now, but with Patrick Roberts providing a good cameo of the bench, does Tony Mowbray have a bit of a selection headache on his hands?
This very question was asked before our trip to London this weekend, with Tony opting to go with Ba and have Roberts on the bench, which for me was the right decision. It was a decision that paid off as he showed on multiple occasions, he is starting to gain some confidence, including a Jewison Bennette-esque roulette turn in the build up to Jack Clarke’s equaliser. Ba continued to flourish in the second half, which including a fantastically taken goal, with a bit of French connection between him and new signing Adil Aouchiche.
Patrick Roberts did come on but did not replace Abdoullah Ba, who played the full game. The tricky winger made a very positive impact linking up nicely with Alex Pritchard for the Black Cats second goal.
One thing that I would point out though is that Ba actually looked a lot better when Roberts came on. The two linked up on a few occasions causing the QPR defence all sorts of problems. This adds another question, do you potentially play Ba in the Amad type role and put Roberts back out wide?
If you do that though, who do you drop?
If Ekwah is not fit, do you play Bellingham deeper, or if he is fit do you harshly drop Bellingham. There is also the fact Alex Pritchard performed fantastically and is well within a shout of a start at Ewood Park.
It is certainly a headache for Mowbray, but a nice one to have. It is very rare Sunderland have so many players playing well in similar positions and unfortunately somebody is going to feel hard done by, but with two games in a week, Tony does have a chance to utilise his squad depth and have a bit of a tinker around.
If it was me in Mowbray’s shoes, I would probably keep Roberts on the bench against Blackburn. I just feel like it would be very harsh to drop anybody at the moment, especially a young player like Ba, who with a run of games could continue to get better and better.
No matter what the decision is by Mowbray, it will be far from an easy call and I will back whatever decision he makes, but for the sake of Ba’s development, I hope he continues to back the Frenchman against Blackburn on Wednesday night.
