Callum Doyle is in danger of 'burnout' in his first season of senior football, admits Sunderland boss Alex Neil.
The Black Cats' new boss has inherited a huge problem with a group of young players - which includes on-loan Manchester City defender Doyle, midfielder Dan Neil, and left-back Dennis Cirkin - who have been mainstays of the side in the first half of the season but visibly have run out of steam over the last month or so.
Yet they have had to continue playing because seniors such as Luke O'Nien, Aiden McGeady, and Nathan Broadhead are out injured, while several of the club's January recruits such as Jermain Defoe, Jack Clarke, and Patrick Roberts arrived having barely played all season.
READ MORE: Nathan Broadhead back training with Sunderland as he edges closer to a comeback
And it is that perfect storm that has led to Sunderland's catastrophic drop-off in form, with the club's season descending from an automatic promotion challenge at the turn of the year to what is now a battle for a play-off place.
Sunderland have won just one of their ten games since New Year, and they face a tough test this afternoon when they travel to second-placed Wigan Athletic, with Neil looking for his first win since taking charge, with his first three games having ended in two draws and a defeat.
Of Doyle, Neil said: "The kid is 18, he's played a hell of a lot of games, and he has huge potential as a player.
"But if you keep playing him and playing him and playing him, as has happened, the difficulty you are going to find is that at some point, he is going to burn himself out in his first season at this level.
"Unfortunately for Callum, that is the difficulty we are trying to overcome at the moment.
"Looking at Callum and then Arbenit Xhemajlli is a really good example - you go from one player who has played far too much football, to a guy who has effectively played no football [having only recently returned from a long-term injury].
"How do you find the balance?
"What is worse? Playing the guy who has played far too much, or the one who has hardly played at all?
"I think we'll find that the young players are better for it in the long term, just not at this moment in time.
"As a young player, you do need to come up against these challenges and work your way through difficult moments, but ideally you would want other guys in reserve who you could put in to give them a hand."
In the first half of the season, Sunderland's youngsters earned high praise from fans and then-boss Lee Johnson alike, but playing so many games in what amounts to their breakthrough season was bound to catch up with them in the end,
The problem for Neil is that the games keep coming, and with only 12 matches remaining until the end of the season his time to find a fix is severely limited.
He said: "That's the biggest issue.
"If we were in pre-season at the moment, I could address this problem and get everyone to a position where they are on a level playing field, and mix it as we go to make sure we don't end up in the situation that we currently find ourselves.
"But the fact is that this situation has already happened, and what I'm trying to do is pick up the pieces.
"It's not something that I'm trying to force, it's already been done."
One possible solution would be to use U23 games to give players such as Clarke, Roberts, Defoe, and Xhemajli some additional gametime, but that carries with it the risk of injuries which would only make the current situation worse.
"Potentially we could do that," said Neil, of the idea of playing seniors in the U23 fixtures.
"As far as the first-team is concerned, Jack Clarke I have bringing off the bench, I've started to build up Jermain's minutes the other day, Patrick Roberts has featured in a few of the games to get his minutes up.
"The problem is, you risk picking up more injuries [if you use them in U23 games].
"We all know the players who are out injured at the moment, and some of them are in their peak years - Broadhead is 23 and while he hasn't played a lot games, he is a good age; Luke O'Nien is in his peak years; Aiden McGeady has been very productive for the club in his time here.
"So, not having those lads available is probably ultimately why the young kids are in the position they are in, because they don't have those extra seniors to rely on.
"There is some merit in potentially playing seniors on a Monday, but equally if I do that and they break down then I'm in an even worse situation."
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