Lady Luck certainly didn’t shine down on Antoine Semenyo during his ill-fated spell at Sunderland.
After a sluggish start to life at the Stadium of Light, the Bristol City loanee looked to have turned a corner during a 3-0 thumping of Bristol Rovers in February 2020.
“What I like about Ant is that he has picked up the things we have worked with him on out there on the training pitch,” then-manager Phil Parkinson said, via the Bristol Post.
“He’s picked up what he needs to do to play in that system.
“We do our homework on people’s character, football intelligence, etc. But you never quite know until you work with them day-to-day.
“And Ant has been great to work with. He is making the runs we want him to make and getting into the areas where he can be dangerous.”
Unfortunately for Semenyo – and Sunderland – their relationship never even got the chance to blossom into a whirlwind romance.
The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that, just a fortnight after his eye-catching cameo against Rovers, Semenyo was packing his bags and heading back to Bristol, the League One campaign to be decided on a points-per-game basis.
Will Antoine Semenyo really leave Bristol City for £20m?
That was two years ago. How Sunderland could do with Semenyo now.
Because while little has changed for the Black Cats – they are still dreaming of an escape from their League One prison, a run of seven wins in 18 games threatening to extend their sentence – Semenyo is in the form of his life in a division Sunderland fans would once have labelled a nightmarish hellscape but now view as the Promised Land.
“He’s very difficult to play against,” Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson beamed after the 22-year-old set up two of his side’s three goals in a topsy-turvy Sevenside derby victory over Cardiff City recently.
“I’m pleased with how he’s doing. He has learned a lot in the last 12 months. I think he’s come quite a long way. He’s got pace and power and he uses it well.”
So well, in fact, that Bristol City slapped an eye-watering £20 million price-tag on Semenyo’s head when Nottingham Forest came calling on the final day of the January transfer window (Post).
Needless to say, a managerless, rudderless Sunderland would have loved a £20 million forward to call their own own as relegation-threatened Doncaster Rovers took three points home from Wearside on Saturday afternoon.
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