The Leon Dajaku puzzle: Can German still come good at Sunderland?
How on earth do you solve a puzzle like Leon Dajaku? Where do you even start? Should Sunderland even still be bothering?
It is fair to say that the German youngster has failed to live up to early hype since arriving at Sunderland. He is clearly part of the new recruitment model of signing young raw talent and attempting to develop it, but they can’t all be Denis Cirkin, Aji Alese, or Jack Clarke, right? There are going to be some Freddy Alves’ too, and Dajaku is certainly looking like that end of the scale at the moment.
I’m going to be completely honest from the off here: I am never especially happy whenever I see Leon Dajaku’s name in the Sunderland starting line-up. I would never want to speak for anyone else, but a glance through social media after the team was announced for the Luton and Huddersfield games would suggest I am far from alone in that.
From my point of view, though, that is not borne of a lack of belief that he has quality. We’ve seen it. Okay, so we have seen it very rarely, but it’s there. It is just hard to have any trust that he’s going to produce it.
In fact, the only real trust I have with Leon Dajaku right now is that, no matter the situation, he’s going to make the wrong decision. There just doesn’t seem to be either instinct or intelligence within his game, and it’s hard to see how that can be overcome.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to give up on him already though.
What is even Leon Dajaku’s best position?
There are plenty of players who can play many positions well. Luke O’Nien is the current Mr Versatility, but he has a couple of key tools that allows him to do that: intelligence and athleticism. Dajaku has neither.
Versatile players have to adapt quickly and think about what they’re doing, but there is a fair argument to be made that Dajaku actually needs to be encouraged to think less, not more.
However, since arriving at the club Dajaku has been used as a left winger, a right winger, a striker, a wing-back and a second striker. He is not actually learning any single position and developing any instinct or autopilot for it.
It’s a similar situation really to the one that Lynden Gooch once found himself in. Nowadays, Gooch has become a highly consistent performer who is largely reliable at right back. You don’t have to think too far back, though, to recall a time when he was very, for want of a better word, very ‘Dakaju-y’.
He would run down blind alleys, cross when he should hold onto it, hold onto it when he should be crossing it, and generally frustrating the hell out of all of us. It was only when Alex Neil came in, nailed him to a specific position and simplified the instructions to him that Gooch started to really shine with any actual consistency.
That is probably what Dajaku needs now, but the reality is that he is not going to get that chance at Sunderland, not without a pretty remarkable injury crisis anyway.
Right now he is behind Jack Clarke, Elliot Embleton and probably Jewison Bennette for a start on the left wing, and well behind Patrick Roberts and Amad Diallo for a place on the right. He is even further from getting regular games in a central position, and he’s barely played up front despite an actual injury crisis.
It may be a case that, if Sunderland want to persist with Dajaku, a loan deal is the only real option. Even then, is he just going to be behind Jack Diamond when they both return anyway?
It is certainly becoming increasingly difficult to see a Sunderland future for Dajaku, which is a shame because there is talent in there somewhere.
Still worth persisting?
Can we write him off yet? I don’t think so. He could be one of those players who suddenly clicks into gear. Certainly, if he can enhance his decision-making, that one improvement will elevate every other element of his game immediately, and considerably. Is that something you can learn, though?
Should we be writing him off? Again, I am reluctant to, just because I am rooting so much for him. I don’t even know why I am rooting for him so hard to be perfectly honest – I just know that I am.
Either way, though, I don’t think Sunderland are any closer to solving the Leon Dajaku puzzle – if indeed it is even solvable.