ON a day of goalscoring firsts for Sunderland at the weekend, Jewison Bennette’s late leveller should not hide the impact made by Aji Alese. 

The 21-year-old left-back signed from West Ham in the summer looked as assured against Watford as he had at Reading three days earlier. 

That was not an easy task given that he had precocious Watford teenager Yaser Asprilla running at him all afternoon, yet Alese’s impact on the game was the greater as he galloped forward on the stroke of half-time to slide his shot under Daniel Bachmann and over the line – just. 

Alese said: “It was a tight one. I thought it went in and wanted to celebrate but I had to wait.

"When I was growing up watching football, it probably would not have been given because the lino wouldn’t have seen it and the referee did not have a good angle. But I'm very happy and hopefully it's the first of a few.” 

Alese also praised the decision to stay in the south between the Reading and Watford fixtures. 

He added: "We’ve had four days away together and it has given us a bit of time. You can create relationships with players you don't know and it is time to have meetings and speak to each other. 

"The manager has been here a couple of weeks and everyone is trying to get to know him better. Over the last four days we have seen a different side to him being away from home. 

"It helps us as a squad. I think some Italian teams like Juventus talk about when they go on a bad run, they go away for a couple of nights and can just focus purely on football away from distractions. That helps. 

"Tony (Mowbray) is good with all the lads. If you're left out, he will put his arm around you and have a chat. I’ve been waiting for my chance and it came this week. Before the Reading game, he said to go out and just play.” 

In addition to making his first two Championship starts in the last two games, Alese revealed he has also been helping Bennette to settle in, in spite of the Costa Rican teenager’s lack of grasp of English. 

Alese said: “Some of us know a few Spanish words so we try and speak to Jewi in that. His English is very limited. But he’s a nice lad and that makes it easy to get along.”