Why Chris Rigg is Sunderland's young player to watch out for this season

Transcript

00:00 Yeah, I'm not sure there's another answer to this one really, to be honest,

00:04 given how well he's played in pre-season.

00:07 I think he's obviously not going to be a regular starter from day one, but

00:11 I think we're in a position now where you're expecting him to get a fair few

00:15 opportunities, particularly the Carabao Cup.

00:16 I'd be amazed if we didn't see him feature prominently in that for

00:19 however long someone's been in that competition.

00:22 And from what we've seen, he's probably going to make an impact.

00:25 I think he's got a couple of things that work really well in Riggs' favour.

00:29 One is obviously his tenacity, which is already really well established for

00:33 someone so young.

00:34 And secondly, which we've seen in pre-season, that habit of getting into

00:37 the box.

00:37 We talked about that with Bradley Dac earlier on this podcast,

00:41 something Sunderland massively haven't had.

00:43 If he keeps making those runs into the box with the way Sunderland play,

00:46 there'll be chances for him.

00:47 And we're not saying here that Riggs is going to play 45 games and

00:52 score 15 goals as Sunderland race to the Championship title.

00:56 But I do think he is going to, we'll see a fair bit of him.

01:01 And I think it's one where there's probably not much point having too

01:04 clever an answer.

01:05 I think he looks the most likely at this point.

01:07 The other player, of course, who got his debut last year and his rise has

01:10 pretty closely mirrored Chris Riggs is Tom Watson.

01:15 But Watson's not had a pre-season because of an injury.

01:18 And it sounds like he's still a little way away from being considered,

01:23 you know, being able to return.

01:25 And obviously at that point, he'll then need to build his match fitness,

01:27 presumably in the 21s.

01:29 So he is someone to keep an eye out for because, you know,

01:32 he has a level of talent that earned him that debut against Huddersfield last year.

01:36 And so we shouldn't forget about him.

01:38 It's just that obviously Riggs at the moment is much better placed because,

01:41 well, purely for fitness reasons.

01:44 Talk to me about Chris Riggs and Bradley Dac actually as a pair.