A prominent figure at Carrington felt Amad needed a run of 10 games to showcase his talent. The 20-year-old scored his fifth goal in seven starts for Sunderland on Monday night.
Cote d'Ivoire's failure to secure passage to Qatar has provided the breakthrough in Amad's professional career. He has already appeared more times for Sunderland than Manchester United, Atalanta or Rangers less than four months into his loan stint in the Championship.
English football's second tier has staged 13 games during the World Cup and Sunderland have been involved in two of them. Queens Park Rangers resumed their campaign against leaders Burnley at the weekend in what was United loanee Ethan Laird's 18th start at right-back. Left-back Alvaro Fernandez lined up for Preston in their 4-1 thrashing of Blackburn.
