Joel Asoro is out to impress following the appointment of Chris Coleman.
The highly-rated forward has been on the first-team periphery since the start of last season and in August 2016 he became the youngster player to represent the club the Premier League.
Consecutive starts followed in the EFL Cup and he often travelled with the first-team squad despite playing the majority of his football with the under-23s as they reached the PL International Cup final.
This season, the 18-year-old has made five senior appearances and Tuesday’s game at Villa Park signalled a return to the fray, as Coleman called upon the Swede during the closing stages.
And getting to know the new Sunderland manager, he’s hoping for further chances to impress.
“It felt really good to play in the manager’s first game because it shows your part of his plans, so it was good for my confidence, but I need to work harder on and off the pitch.
“There’s a lot of injuries at the moment so if I get the chance to play I’ve got to do it.”
He continued: “Hopefully I made a good impression because he hasn’t seen me play before.
“Running at players is my ability and he wanted me to run at my defender, so I have to keep working on that.
“I like him [Coleman] because you can tell he knows football and has loads of experience – many managers do but he’s worked with some amazing attacking players – and he gets the best out of players.”
