Rory Fallow and Matthew Keeling reacted to Sunderland’s 2-0 win away to Gillingham this past weekend on a recent edition of the Wise Men Say podcast and spent some time talking about Black Cats winger Aiden O’Brien during the show.
O’Brien moved to the Stadium of Light this past summer on a free transfer after his contract with Championship side Millwall expired. The 27-year-old was the Black Cats’ first signing of the most recent summer transfer window.
The winger started the North East club’s clash with Gillingham at the weekend but he was removed from the pitch 70 minutes into the game with the two teams tied at 0-0. He earned the lowest overall WhoScored rating (5.75/10) of any Sunderland player versus the Gills.
During this recent edition of the Wise Men Say podcast, which saw Keeling and Fallow react to this past weekend’s game, Keeling was highly critical of O’Brien, with the podcaster indicating that he hasn’t been impressed by the ex-Republic of Ireland international since he made his move to Sunderland, saying:
“His finishing’s awful. He’s not for me. I don’t know, I just expected a bit more from him, I think. I expected him to be better than this, to be honest. He doesn’t look like he’s ever going to get [a goal].”
Have you been impressed with Aiden O'Brien this season?
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TIF Thoughts on what Keeling had to say about O’Brien…
It may be fair to say that his poor performance versus Gillingham was not a one-off, as O’Brien has appeared in seven of Sunderland’s nine league games so far this term and has earned the fourth-lowest overall WhoScored rating (6.28) in the league of any Black Cats player to have made a single appearance in England’s third tier this term.
The last time O’Brien played in League One, he was Millwall’s second-highest goalscorer and fifth-highest assist provider in the league, helping them to earn promotion to the Championship – where he had played his football since prior to his Sunderland move – via the play-offs back in the 2016/17 campaign.
With that in mind, we feel it’s understandable why Keeling might have expected better performances from the £428k-rated attacker, who is yet to make a single goal contribution for Phil Parkinson’s side in League One this season.