A Progress Report on Tottenham's Sunderland Loanee DeAndre Yedlin

Few players are the subject of more intense debate despite playing only 11 minutes for their club than Tottenham's DeAndre Yedlin. 

The United States international is hugely popular among his countrymen but largely derided as a marketing stunt by British Spurs fans.

Yedlin joined from MLS side Seattle Sounders after an impressive World Cup campaign but only arrived in January 2015 after seeing out his final domestic season in the USA. 

Arriving mid-season was never going to be ideal for Yedlin's chances of finding a place in Tottenham's team. To make things yet more challenging, Kyle Walker had returned to something approaching his best form while Eric Dier had emerged as a handy deputy. 

Yedlin, lacking the requisite fitness and tactical understanding to even be considered for the senior side, was placed in the under-21s.

Joel Auerbach/Getty Images

This situation wasn't serving Yedlin's development so a loan move was the obvious next step and he joined Sunderland on deadline day. 

A relegation-threatened club may seem an odd destination for a tactically unrefined, offensively minded full-back, but Yedlin's move to Wearside was actually ideal.

The Black Cats' squad was short on quality, meaning Yedlin would get opportunities to play, and given their weakness, his defensive qualities would be routinely tested. 

Billy Jones was initially preferred to Yedlin at right-back, and the American ended 2015 with more international appearances (19) than senior first-team games (11). 

Jones' inelegant play and Sam Allardyce's arrival as manager in mid-October gave Yedlin the opportunity he needed, and the American was the undisputed starter by season's end. 

Yedlin admits Allardyce's fondness for repetitive defensive drills in training caused something to "click" for him. 

WhoScored gave Yedlin an average rating of 6.84 in his 23 Premier League appearances. By way of comparison, Walker earned 7.19 and Kieran Trippier 7.26 (in five league games). 

Yedlin played 11 key passes and provided one assist or roughly half the offensive output of team-mate Patrick van Aanholt. 

Unsurprisingly, Yedlin's worst performance came in a 2-0 home defeat to Leicester City. 

The championship-bound Foxes made better full-backs than Yedlin look foolish with their pace and lateral passing, but that combination did for Yedlin, too. 

Yedlin's move to Tottenham from Seattle was beginning to look like a misstep last summer, but his Wearside loan spell has jumpstarted his career in England.

Yedlin has won 36 caps at the age of 22 and is the 11th-most capped player in the United States' Copa America squad. 

Despite those somewhat impressive numbers, he remains shockingly raw. 

He has made only 95 professional appearances, with only 26 coming at a reasonably standard and the rest in MLS. 

The Sunderland loan was his first taste of top-level football, and while he was occasionally exposed, he was far from their worst player and realistically helped keep them up. 

Certainly by the end of the season, Yedlin was making an impact going forward with his assist for Jermain Defoe's winner against Chelsea an indication of his maturing abilities. 

Yedlin's remarkable athletic abilities—he is one of the fastest players in world football—make him worth persisting with.

LINDSEY PARNABY/Getty Images

He is only a year older than now-England full-back Danny Rose was when he also joined Sunderland on loan. That spell was the making of his career.

Ideally, Yedlin would return to Sunderland on loan next season. 

With the immense improvement he has already made, he may return to Spurs in the summer of 2017 as a genuine back-up option.

He will never reach Walker's level, but with academy star Kyle Walker-Peters still some time away, Yedlin could help bridge the gap.

Certainly, Trippier has failed to nail down the understudy role. 

If he fails to make comparable strides next season, Tottenham could happily part ways with Yedlin and would still likely make a profit on the tiny fee required to sign him in 2014.