At the twenty-second time of asking, Adil Aouchiche completed his first full ninety minutes for Sunderland in their 0-0 draw with Queens Park Rangers.
Like many who arrived at the Stadium of Light last summer, the Frenchman has had to adjust to life on Wearside and bide his time in search of a regular starting berth, whether that be under Tony Mowbray, Michael Beale or current interim head coach Mike Dodds. But with this just a fifth start for the 21-year-old this season, the optimism and expectations on the midfielder have somewhat dispersed.
Sunderland negotiated a prolonged pursuit of Aouchiche throughout the summer in order to bring him to the North East on a five-year deal for an undisclosed fee from Ligue 1 side Lorient. Despite his relatively young age, Aouchiche had earned himself plenty of experience in his native France having carved a pathway following an uncertain end to his time with Paris Saint-Germain after the Parisian side dissolved their academy system due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE: Win pair of hospitality tickets for Sunderland vs Sheff Wed
Despite the teenager finding it difficult to break into the first team at The Parc des Prince, he excelled at international youth level in 2019 scoring nine goals at the U17 European Championship, including four in a 6-1 win over Czech Republic and an equaliser against England in their Group B opener. Aouchiche then went on to finish second in the Golden Boy award for the U17 World Cup in November 2019 having contributed one goal and seven assists for France on their way to a third-place finish - form which alerted the interest of several high profile clubs across Europe, with Aouchiche still then limited to just three appearances for Thomas Tuchel’s side in 2019-20.
Aouchiche turned down the opportunity to remain in the French capital before moving to AS Saint-Étienne in a relative coup for a side who had narrowly avoided relegation the season before, where he would go on to feature 34 times in Ligue 1 making seven goal contributions along the way.
“It was hard for Adil to find a place in midfield,” PSG head coach Tuchel said of Aouchiche’s exit that summer. “I can understand him trying another club to pick up playing time there. But of course, I’m not happy, he has a lot of talent.”
Aouchiche enjoyed a similar second season with St. Étienne before joining Lorient in 2022 where he was limited to just 11 league appearances through injury. It’s what led to a cautious introduction to his Sunderland career, with supporters having to wait to see the playmaker until September’s 3-1 win over Queens Park Rangers where he came off the bench to assist Abdoullah Ba’s first goal of the season.
But if Sunderland were hoping to tap into the potential Aouchiche displayed as one of PSG’s brightest young talents when on show with the French youth national teams they have, as yet, been left a little short-changed.
Aouchiche has made two goal contributions in just over 700 minutes of game time for Sunderland – his sole strike coming in the 3-1 win over Birmingham City to add to that assist at Loftus Road. The turning point for Aouchiche recently seemed to come in the wake of the 2-1 defeat at Portman Road against Ipswich Town where the midfielder missed a golden opportunity to hand Sunderland the initiative when flashing wide of the post unchallenged inside the area before then fouling Leif Davis for the free kick which led to Ipswich’s winner. Although head coach at the time Beale did not outright pin the blame on Aouchiche, there was little left to the imagination in his summary of the situation.
“We had a big opportunity at the start of the second half to get our noses in front and then it’s ill-discipline from us,” said Beale. “The boy is facing the stand, there’s no need to foul. It’s a poor decision to make.
“It’s fine margins but it was of our own doing – that second goal should never happen, firstly from giving away the set play, it’s lazy defending and then we’re not marking in the middle of our box. We’ve had big opportunities at the other end and we’ve not been able to take them.”
Aouchiche played just three more minutes under Beale following that defeat in Suffolk when coming on as a late substitute in the win over Plymouth Argyle before being granted more sufficient cameo appearances under Dodds against both Leicester City and Southampton.
And it is those two games that have caught the attention of Dodds and supporters, with Aouchiche impressing, albeit in defeat. It led to his first start since December coming at the weekend and his first 90 minutes for the club since joining last summer – something, internally, the club will be hoping can progress between now and the end of the season.
Although Sunderland laboured to a goalless draw against Marti Cifuentes' side in what was deeply uninspiring, and in the words of Dodds a ‘naïve,’ performance, Aouchiche was arguably the one to walk out with some credit – at least in the eyes of the interim head coach who would go on to explain why Aouchiche hasn’t featured as regularly as he would have liked.
“I thought he was good – he was probably one of the few positives, if I’m honest,” Dodds revealed to We Are Sunderland. “He’s doing Ramadan at the moment as well, which I think needs to be mentioned because, to use a better phrase, he’s really emptied the tank for us.
“On the flipside, we just don’t have many other options at the moment. But I do think his last two performances in coming off the bench has more than warranted a start in the team. I think he’s trained really well.
“When I took over interim charge of the football club somebody asked me a question around Adil and I said that we’ve got Adil in a much better place in terms of his concentration and his application and I think if he stays in that place he’ll stay in the team.”
READ MORE:
- The sorry statistic behind Sunderland's season continues to haunt them in QPR stalemate
- WATCH: Sunderland's draw with QPR sets alarm bells ringing
- Sunderland's international break comes at an ideal time - now the need a reaction
But what of Aouchiche’s performance?
The midfielder was comfortably Sunderland’s highest player in terms of their xG chain against Queens Park Rangers, accounting for 0.38 of their 1.5 total – Leo Hjelde was next at 0.17. The xG chain is a value assigned to a player who took part in a possession calculated in four stages; (1) all the possessions each player is involved in, (2) all the shots within those possessions, (3) sum of their xG, (4) that sum to each player, however involved they were.
Aouchiche also enjoyed the highest xG chain in terms of open play and build-up as per StatsBomb.
As far as outright expected assists (xGA) are concerned, Aouchiche, again, was Sunderland’s leading candidate at 0.23 – the next best being substitute Pierre Ekwah at 0.09. Only QPR’s Sinclair Armstrong registered a higher xGA at 0.35 owing to his key pass for Chris Willock in the closing stages of the game where the midfielder was denied by Anthony Patterson.
Aouchiche was the only Sunderland player to complete a pass into the opposition box as well as pass inside the box while rivalling Trai Hume for most crosses into the box made by a Sunderland player with three each.
The Frenchman had the most progressive carries in the game for Sunderland, attempted the most take-ons and received the most progressive passes (8) from his team-mates.
But one stat which will particularly stand out for Dodds and the coaching staff is Aouchiche’s total pressures as he scored highest of any player on the pitch with 37 total pressures – the next best being inverted full-back Callum Styles with 29, with QPR forward Lyndon Dykes rounding off the top three with 27. StatsBomb’s pressures are defined by ‘applying pressure to an opposing player who’s receiving, carrying or releasing the ball’ which suggested the 21-year-old was, as Dodds referred to, giving his full effort, concentration and application to the game.
Equally, however, this wasn’t necessarily the type of performance which saw Aouchiche enlisted as a Golden Boy nominee as a 17-year-old or why Paris Saint-Germain held him in such high regard.
Aouchiche had 65 touches in the game and completed 60 per cent of his dribbles and a similar number of his 46 passes, winning six of 13 duels.
StatsBomb’s passing network shows a visual representation of how Aouchiche was arguably Sunderland’s most effective player, alongside Hume, in the first half as shown by the size of his xG chain circle, before drifting in the second half.
What this passing network also shows is how, in the first half at least, Aouchiche was able to pick up a recognised No.10 position in advanced midfield, something which may have hindered him previously given the number of positions he has featured in, having lined up behind Luis Hemir. Although Ba is the most advanced of Sunderland's attacking quartet of Hemir, Aouchiche, Ba and Roamine Mundle, the first half at least represented a structure in terms of the players’ positions.
The second half saw Aouchiche drift over towards the left of the field from those central areas – an area of the field he, Ba, Mundle and substitute Mason Burstow occupied a little too frequently as Sunderland failed to threaten as much as they should have.
The on-ball-value (OBV) also shows how Aouchiche was the most threatening of Sunderland’s front four in the first half with a value of 0.04 – having linked up most prominently with Ba on the left as shown by the red passing line between the pair, before regressing in the second half to an OBV of -0.08 as Neil become Sunderland’s biggest on ball threat at 0.10.
Aouchiche remains Sunderland’s biggest threat in terms of xG per 90 minutes for players to have featured in over 600 minutes this season at 0.3 and his expected numbers do correlate, if not better, most in the squad when contrasted with his XGA. The issue is trying to bring out those numbers into actual goals and assists – something which will only become more realistic the more game time he is exposed to.
A lot has been made about Sunderland’s recruitment over the course of the last three transfer windows and while it is clear Aouchiche, like most others, has had difficulties adapting to life in the North East, he is one of the club’s acquisitions whereby you can see some potential – albeit that does not help Dodds and the club at this current moment in time with the season now effectively over bar any continued slide towards a relegation battle.
When leaving PSG, Aouchiche was highly coveted, including by Premier League title chasers Arsenal, with the then teenager believing in his potential. “It’s simple, I didn’t have enough playing time in the first team,” he told French football magazine Onze Mondial on his decision not to renew his stay in Paris.
“I am one of the leading players of my generation, so I have big goals and dreams. Without being in too much of a hurry, I wanted to play professionally soon. I thought I deserved playing time.
“For me, I had to have my chances so that I could repeat matches. It was important for me. It was complicated at PSG with a squad full of stars and great players. The club has wanted to win the Champions League for several years. I had other opportunities at other clubs. I knew that I would be able to move on and develop elsewhere. I really wanted to establish myself as a regular player in a club and Saint-Étienne was a great opportunity.”
That potential as being one of the leading players of a generation has considerably depleted over the last two season’s but it is why Sunderland were keen to pick him up, given their desire to extract that kind of potential.
“We believe in his talent and flexibility and his potential to further improve in our environment,” the club’s sporting director Kristjaan Speakman said.
“His challenge now is to break into a highly competitive team and forge his way in the Championship.”
That is a challenge Aouchiche is still trying to navigate.
Read the rules here