Sunderland are in a brilliant position to return to the Championship at the first time of asking but a large part of their early-season success was down to star striker Josh Maja. 

The 20-year-old netted 15 times in 24 games before January, helping his side into automatic promotion contention, but was sold in the winter transfer window after turning down a new deal with the club.

He now finds himself at Ligue 1 club Bordeaux and replaced by Will Grigg at the Stadium of Light in what has been a rapid change of scenery for the youngster.

It was undoubtedly a brave move to make the switch to mainland Europe and it will be interesting to see whether or not it works out for him.

Life in France has been a slow burner so far, however, being left out of the first-team squad for their opening clashes with Strasbourg in the league and cup.

And on Tuesday it was revealed that he would not be in the side that faces Marseille that night either, leading to plenty of jibes being thrown his way from his former fans.

But what should the striker be thinking following this latest setback?

Maja showed during his half-season on the front line with Sunderland how mature beyond his years he is on the pitch and we should now, for his sake, hope that maturity is also a feature in his personal life.

Because what he should be thinking of the situation is very little. He must have known that the chances of him being thrown straight into the Bordeaux team were slim.

Bringing in a 20-year-old is always a risk let alone bringing him in from a different country so of course, they were going to give him time to acclimatise before throwing him into the side.

The jibes from his former fans need to be ignored and he simply has to get his head down and work hard in training to prove his worth.