Which Sunderland players may have a point to prove during the final three games?

My mind immediately goes to the players who I look at and think, ‘Well, if we’re looking to upgrade the quality, who’s the first out of the door?’.
Patrick Roberts has been something of a luxury player this season, but very rarely have we benefited from that luxury.
He has just two assists (both of which can barely count as assists when he was teeing someone up for a shot from a free kick) and no goals, either. It’s not good enough really and whilst I love him very much, a promotion-chasing Sunderland team is going to need two high-quality and productive wingers next season.
Now that Roberts is fit, he has to make the most of the final three games and show everyone why there’s still life in the old dog yet.
Fair play to Mike Dodds, who didn’t shy away from the issue of Roberts’ form when asked about it recently, and now it’s up to Roberts to either respond to the challenge or fold. Malc Dugdale says…
I think Abdoullah Ba needs to make a case for his first team future in the final three games, as he’s had very few minutes of late and has been overtaken by Adil Aouchiche, Patrick Roberts and Chris Rigg.
He’s had some good games this season but if I were him I’d want to finish strongly.
After West Bromwich Albion, I also think the season is going to end sooner than Callum Styles would like.
He was pretty decent in that game and it’s unfortunate that we may have found a shape with a position he can shine in when the season is almost done. I’ve seen enough poor games from the Hungarian international to suggest that I’m not bothered if he goes back to his parent club, but he’ll want to impress so he has a better chance in 2024/2025.
The final one I’d pick is Hemir, as we’ll be hitting this summer market with a new striker being the necessity we probably should’ve targeted for the past few windows.
Again, whether we keep him around as a sub and use him to impact games, or if we loan him out, he’ll probably want to end on a high after a pretty flat first season in red and white.
He has to get on the pitch to do that and he hasn’t achieved a lot of late, but I think he’ll want to and may get the chance of some minutes now that we’re mathematically safe. Sam Blakey says…
There are a number of players who I think would benefit from finishing the season strongly, but in terms of having a point to prove, Callum Styles surely has the biggest.
Although the last two games have seen Styles turn in two decent performances, his earlier spell of matches suggest that he now has three games to convince the club to make his move permanent.
A switch to a back five has certainly brought the best out of Styles, and it’ll be interesting to see whether Styles will revert back to his earlier standard of performance if we revert to a back four.
It could also be argued that Patrick Roberts needs to end the season on a high for his own sake.
I’m a huge fan of Roberts but even I can’t defend him finishing the season on a total of zero goals and one assist (sort of). It’s undoubtedly going to be a huge 2024/2025 season for Roberts, and therefore a strong end to this one could take a little bit of the pressure off him.
Finally, I wouldn’t say this player has a point to prove, but I’d just like to see him get some minutes in the remaining three games.
Tom Watson is absolutely flying for the U21’s and with it looking likely that Jack Clarke will go in the summer, who better to step up than our very own ‘Clarke regen’ from the academy?
Given that we’ve got nothing to play for, I’d like to see Watson given a run out, especially at the Stadium of Light.