Alex Neil explains defensive dilemma he has at Sunderland

Callum Doyle has made 38 appearances for Sunderland this season already, his first in senior football on loan from Manchester City.

The precocious centre back clearly has a big future ahead of him but Alex Neil is conscious of the workload he has been presented with in a very demanding campaign at the Stadium of Light.

With other more experienced defenders becoming available, Neil may lean on them a little more in the crunch encounters on the horizon to ensure Doyle does not suffer a dip in form due to his busy schedule this term.

Neil explained his thoughts around the Doyle situation when he spoke to ChronicleLive.

He said: “The kid is 18, he’s played a hell of a lot of games, and he has huge potential as a player.

“But if you keep playing him and playing him and playing him, as has happened, the difficulty you are going to find is that at some point, he is going to burn himself out in his first season at this level.

“Unfortunately for Callum, that is the difficulty we are trying to overcome at the moment.

“Looking at Callum and then Arbenit Xhemajli is a really good example – you go from one player who has played far too much football, to a guy who has effectively played no football (having only recently returned from a long-term injury).

“How do you find the balance? What is worse? Playing the guy who has played far too much, or the one who has hardly played at all?

“I think we’ll find that the young players are better for it in the long term, just not at this moment in time.”

It will be interesting to see what option Neil opts for in the coming months as Sunderland look to climb back into the play-off places after a very disappointing run since Lee Johnson was dismissed.

The Verdict

It is easy to see both sides of