Graeme Murty has confirmed that Niall Huggins has returned to first-team training after over a year out injured. The Black Cats right-back suffered a number of setbacks on his return to fitness, but has been an ever-present in the Under-21s side in recent weeks.
The Wales-youth international clocked up another 90 minutes as he gets fitness back into his legs, with an eye on returning to Tony Mowbray's matchday squad. Murty said: "He's training with the First-Team now so we've handed over responsibility for his minutes in training which is great for Niall. We'll continue to drop him into the team as required by the first-team, which is really good.
"I think he would be the first one to say that [he needs trust in his body]. He's listening to his body, his body is responding to what he wants it to do, which is a challenge when you've been out for a while.
READ MORE: Sunderland U21s' second-half comeback not enough to undo Southampton's first-half damage
"Having gone through it myself, I can see the steps that he's taking positively to get back to where he wants to be. There were times when it won't work and times when he tells his body to do something and it says no.
"They're immensely frustrating as a footballer, we have to help him get over that frustration and get him ready for when he's dropped back into the first-team. One of the best things about the Under-21s programme as far as I can see, is the capacity to get those minutes first-team players to get them to understand it is a viable competition in terms of minutes and making sure that they're match-prepped should they be called and ready to go in the First-Team."
Huggins was part of the Sunderland side that suffered a 3-1 defeat against Southampton this afternoon, with Leon Dajaku also dropping down to gather important minutes. "We've obviously got Leon as well, who wanted to get some minutes in and that was good for him," Murty said. "I think he will get valuable minutes in his legs to help him with what he wants to do moving forward.
"For all of our young players, it's great for them playing with first-team players in terms of understanding of quality and aspiration looking at those players. Saying 'I want a bit of that.'
"We've got a lot of young players in that group there, that have to start to believe in themselves a little bit. I thought the first-half in essence was a group of young people in not believing they could deal with Southampton, and the second-half was a group of young people who thought that they could.
"It's what the power of belief looks like because it was like night and day."
The Black Cats were poor in the first-half as Southampton raced to a 3-0 lead at the break, and it could have been more. However, a spirited second-half performance could have seen Sunderland draw level had they made the most of their chances.
"I think you could call it a game of two halves," Murty said. "We were incredibly passive and submissive in the first-half where we allowed Southampton to dictate and frankly we could have been more goals down than the three that we were.
"Then, after they were left in no uncertain terms of our displeasure as staff, that it wasn't good enough, they showed in the second-half that they were more than capable of handling the level. The bit that we want to know from them, and I've just asked them this question, is why does it take 45 minutes for them to start?
"You can't start at half-time against anyone in this league because that's going to happen to you. I thought in the second-half, there were many, many, many good things that we did.
"Our style of play, our press, our structure, our communication were all of a far higher order and if anything we could have come away with a draw because we created more than enough opportunities to do so. I just challenged them to be braver, in their application, more aggression in their press and I asked them if Southampton were doing anything that we hadn't covered in the pre-brief.
"We go through what they're going to do and how they're going to play and it was exactly what we said. But, as I've said, they were far too passive, far too submissive and there weren't enough voices on the pitch to solve the problems as they occurred.
"Once we detailed clearly, again, what our expectations were. I thought the players took that into the second-half. I can be displeased about the first-half, that's fine, but there were a great deal of occasions in the second-half where I have to be pleased with their attention to detail, the aggression in the press, the way that they actually organised to stop Southampton playing.
"It necessitated Southampton changing their shape and they don't tend to do that. We were on the front foot so much, I actually thought we made them reactive in the way that we were in the first-half."
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