ROMAINE Mundle has shown promising flashes of what he could be capable of in a Sunderland shirt during the summer and early stages of the season - but the former Tottenham winger has one obvious problem.

Mundle is most at home playing on the left flank, a position nailed down by Sunderland's star man Jack Clarke.

And if, as Sunderland hope, Clarke stays put this month and doesn't leave the club ahead of the transfer deadline, game-time on that side of the pitch will be hard to come by for Mundle.

That's why Regis Le Bris experimented with the 21-year-old on the right flank and as a No.10 in the second half of last week's Carabao Cup first round defeat to Preston.

The head coach likes versatility in his forward players and has already explained that Ian Poveda will be comfortable playing across the attack once he's fully up to speed and ready to feature for the Black Cats.

And Le Bris is hoping that can also be the case for Mundle.

"You saw at Preston that he started on the left side, then moved to the right and finished in the 10 position," he said.

"Against Sheffield Wednesday he played on the right side. It's a possibility because he has many qualities. He's still young and needs to improve his consistency because he can be very high and then at other moments, it's more difficult for him. This is the process of improving young players."

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That is the other big challenge for Mundle - consistency.

The winger, who arrived from Standard Liege in January, was unplayable at times in the pre-season friendly at Bradford but also has games where he frustrates. It's something Le Bris understands but is working on.

"His performances are still a little unstable, because I think wingers have a very different profile to other players," said the head coach, whose Sunderland side are back in action when they host Championship leaders Burnley this weekend.

"A centre back, for example, we like when they are stable and very consistent. Sometimes not so high, but never very low.

"For the wingers it's very different because it is always 1-v-1 - I think the personality is different. They can be very high, so for example when Romaine played against Bradford he was very impressive and that was very interesting.

"After, maybe we have one, two games not quite at that level. But we trust him and believe in his quality because you can see how high he can go.

"The process to develop him is to find this consistency, it starts during the training sessions. The main thing is this potential that you see, and then we develop the consistency. With some players it takes two months, six, one season... you don't know. I hope it will be quick with Romaine."