Why Abdoullah Ba has become unlikely hero in quest to sell 'the model' to Sunderland fans
Sometimes, often if you’re a Sunderland fan, you look back to a point in history and wonder how we got from there to here.
Towards the end of the win over Stoke City on Saturday, I found myself in one of those moments.
After a brilliant performance from Abdoullah Ba that saw him pick up two goals and an assist, I couldn’t help but think back to the 5-2 pre-season battering at Hartlepool.
Everyone in red and white was incredibly poor that night, as the scoreline suggests, but in the away end it was Ba who was the source of most of the frustration.
The Frenchman should have had three of four goals that night, yet every time he worked himself a great position, he’d trip himself up with a dreadful decision. It was quite hard to watch, really.
That frustration has continued with Ba into the season too. At times the expression of that frustration has been audible from the stands, and it must have been difficult for him.
And yet, Ba is having a good season. In fact, only Jack Clarke in the entire Sunderland squad has more goal contributions than Ba. You could argue that may be more down to the underperformance of others more than Ba himself, but that would be unkind. The statistics don’t really lie at this stage of a season.
Obviously Ba is still inconsistent. There will be plenty more frustrating days to come with him, but that’s okay. It’s a winger thing more than it is a Ba thing, I think. He may be able to reduce the inconsistency in his game, but he will never eradicate it.
There is, though, an added dimension to Ba now, and it may make him one of the most important players at the club right now.
It’s fair to say that supporters are not convinced by ‘the model’ at this stage. It’s not that everyone is necessarily against it, more that the jury is just still out on it. We’re just not on the same page yet.
Where the club see patience, fans see an absence of ambition. Where the club see a player to develop, fans see penny-pinching. Where the club see a dedication to financial sustainability, fans see a refusal to invest. Or some do, at least, and until the club are proven right, no one can criticise those fans who think they have it wrong.
It’s not going to change, though. They might make an exception from time to time, but generally speaking Sunderland are going to continue scouring the world for young players to develop and go all in on it.
And you can see why some fans may be worried about that, because while Sunderland have had success developing young players so far, they have all come from British clubs… Jack Clarke, Dan Ballard, Trai Hume, Pierre Ekwah, Ross Stewart, Dennis Cirkin.
So far, those signed from abroad have yet to really hit any real heights. Edouard Michut came and went, Jewison Bennette has not played much, and all of those signed last summer with the exception of Jenson Seelt have not really shown us much. Sometimes wanting to have faith isn’t enough, you need to see something to inspire it.
And, at the moment, Ba could be the one to provide that. He was an unknown player signed as a teenager from a foreign club, who has taken time to settle and adapt, who has had his struggles and been criticised but has been a player with whom the club have persisted. If he can come good, and he looks like he is, then fans will believe that other can too.
The Sunderland support need that, I think. We are being asked to perceive our club in a very counter-intuitive way at the moment. All the things we associate with ambition (big spending, signing proven players taking the best from other clubs) are not happening, and all the things you would traditionally associate with being a small club (frugality, signing players from rivals’ reserves, not being at risk of losing your own best players) are happening.
That’s a difficult perception to shift in all honesty, and no one should really expect it to just happen. The club have to make it happen by showing supporters another way.
Ba maturing into a real success story will certainly help there. In fact, it might just be pivotal to getting the fans fully on board and invested in how the club want to operate. It would certainly contribute immeasurably more to the cause than any words, at least.
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