Sunderland AFC player set for temporary Black Cats exit | OneFootball

The Black Cats are letting one of their youthful talents go and gain some non-league experience.

Sunderland defender Ben Crompton is set to join National League side Tamworth on loan for the rest of the season.

That is according to a report from Alan Nixon via his Patreon account, with the Black Cats agreeing to the temporary deal in order for the 20-year-old to gain more experience.

Crompton played and scored against Tamworth on Tuesday evening for Sunderland's under-21s, who he is a regular for, and now he's off to join the fifth tier outfit.

The versatile defender, who can play right across the backline, as per Nixon, started playing for the club's under-21's side when he was just 18.

This will be the first loan move in the young career of Crompton, who is another one of the bright talents to have come from the Black Cats' youth system.

Sunderland AFC: Ben Crompton set for National League loan move with Tamworth

Nixon has reported via his Patreon account, that Crompton would be leaving the Academy of Light for the remainder of the 2024/25 campaign.

The club's under-21s coach, Graeme Murty, who was previously linked with becoming the manager of northeast-based National League side, Hartlepool United before Lennie Lawrence got the job until the end of 2024-25, implored Crompton and fellow youth team player Harrison Jones, to be ready for any potential first-team action after featuring in Regis Le Bris' squads in pre-season.

"They're under-21s players at the moment and they need to make sure that they excel," Murty told the Sunderland Echo.

"So our challenge always to the younger players, whichever age group they're going to be in, if they want to make that next step they have to be the best player in training, they have to be the best player in game and they have to be ready whatever opportunity comes.

"So if they are the next man up, for example, into the 21s as Jaydon Jones has been and Jack Whittaker has been from the under-18s, they have been ready to go and if we get the call that someone's going to go and train with the first team our young players need to be ready and they need to go and make sure that they show themselves really well.

"I think overall in pre-season those players who've gone and trained with the first team have done themselves quite proud but they need to make that next step and they need to not bounce between the two.

"We would rather they were that good that it becomes a permanent movement but that's for them to go and excel and the first team to say, actually I wouldn't stay here."

Crompton has made his first-team debut for the Black Cats already. He featured in an EFL Cup tie against Crewe Alexandra at the start of last season, as well as multiple first-team bench appearances in the current campaign.

No further appearances have come since though at senior level, so this will likely be the first taste of regular men's action that Crompton will receive.

Sunderland AFC need to keep working on loan moves for young talents

Some really exciting young players have come through the Academy of Light in recent years. Anthony Patterson, Chris Rigg and Tommy Watson have made it into the men's team, while others, like Crompton, are beginning to make their impact on professional football through loan spells.

It's a great way for teams to develop and test their inexperienced talents. Unless you are of the unlikely calibre of the aforementioned trio, gaining first-team experience isn't going to come with a team like Sunderland, especially with their current high-flying, table-topping status.

Sending players down the pyramid is, therefore, the other option; one that the Black Cats need to keep exhausting where they can to ensure those who they think have a potential future in the first-team are ready when that opportunity comes.