Sunderland AFC: Lee Johnson’s Ross Stewart prediction was on the money in 2021 – View

 

Sunderland moved to sign Ross Stewart from Ross County back in January 2021, after seeing him perform well in the Scottish football pyramid.

Scoring 28 goals in 82 games for the Scottish side during his time there, he had also done well at Albion Rovers, Alloa Athletic and St Mirren, with his goalscoring ability likely to have alerted the Black Cats.

However, with the player yet to make his first appearance in English football at the time, it was unclear how he was going to perform at the Stadium of Light.

Lee Johnson, who was the Wearside club’s manager at the time, predicted that he would make a good impact in the short term despite the fact he needed to adapt to life south of the border.

He told the BBC: “Ross is a player that will be great for us in the short term, but he can also develop and improve over the long term.

“He’s at a good age, he’s very fit and quick, and he obviously has good height as well, so he has all attributes to succeed.”

He only had a limited number of opportunities to impress during the second half of the 2020/21 season, but he was able to register three goals in 12 competitive games during that time, and Johnson’s claim that he would be great in the short term proved to be correct.

Ross Stewart’s impact at Sunderland

Having scored at a rate of one goal every four games during the second half of 2020/21, that gave him a platform to build on ahead of the 2021/22 campaign.

During the summer of 2021, the Black Cats had been in League One for three years despite their stature, and someone had to step up to fire the club back into the Championship after a fairly long absence.

This is what Stewart was able to do, registering 26 goals and five assists in 53 competitive appearances for the club during the 2021/22 season, and some of these goals proved to be crucial.

He capitalised on a mistake from Sheffield Wednesday’s Sam Hutchinson in the play-off semi-final first leg – and that goal proved to be the difference between the two sides in the end.

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