While the rest of the nation indulged in the Bank Holiday sunshine, Amad Diallo did his utmost to part the clouds gathered above the Stadium of Light.
Diallo, the Manchester United forward spending the season on loan at Sunderland, has impressed on Wearside with his penchant for the spectacular and attitude for opposition defenders that redefines the word ‘disdain’.
And the 20-year-old put in a swaggering masterclass during the Black Cat’s madcap 4-4 draw with Hull on Good Friday.
Diallo scored twice during the evening kick-off, one from close range after being teed up by Jack Clarke and another from the penalty spot.
But we’re not here for that. We’re here for Diallo making a mockery of football convention by dribbling the ball like a seal directly through the Hull defence just because he could.
After receiving the ball inside his own half, the United loanee flicked the magnetic orb from his chest to his right leg in an attempt to draw his opponents into a trap.
It worked. As two Hull players took the bait, Diallo sauntered past them like a man ignoring a beer queue and laid off a perfect pass for his team-mate. Simply magnificent.
Stop that Amad Diallo. pic.twitter.com/nM2ylDJCAT
— Stop That Football (@stopthatfooty) April 7, 2023
Diallo has developed his all round-game on Wearside, which has been noticed by Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray.
“He can play wide, he can play inside, he can play deep,” Mowbray told MUTV last month. “I think he can play centre-midfield for us in the Championship, you know.
“Just give him the ball and he very rarely loses it. Yet we generally put [Patrick] Roberts really wide and play Amad just inside him.
“We’ve had huge success down the right-hand side of the pitch with those two linking and playing with each other, people running off the back of the two of them and sliding people in. It’s very profitable for us. He is versatile.
“I see United games, I watch a lot of football, and Bruno [Fernandes] plays a bit of everywhere, off the right sometimes, inside as a 10 or as a running 8, he can play deep and link the midfield up. Amad is a similar type of footballer.”
A big claim, if not entirely without credibility; the young Ivory Coast international has demonstrated his versatility across a string of second-tier matches and this will have been studiously noted by Erik ten Hag.
While Diallo himself told MUTV: “So, when a player goes on loan, the first thing is to get lots of playing minutes,…
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