page_title: Oumare Tounkara
section_title: Sunderland
hierarchical_section_title: Oumare Tounkara / Club career / Sunderland
caption_attribution_description: Oumare Tounkara
context_page_description: Oumare Tounkara is a French professional footballer who plays as a striker for Championnat National club SC Lyon.
  Tounkara began his career at French club Sedan, before attracting the interest of Premier League club Sunderland. He signed for Sunderland in the summer of 2009. Tounkara had two loan spells at League One club Oldham Athletic, playing regularly during the 2010–11 season and also making a handful of appearances during a much shorter stay towards the latter stages of the 2011–12 campaign. He was released by Sunderland in May 2012, without making any first-team appearances.
  He briefly returned to France to join Red Star of the Championnat National, but again did not make any appearances. In March 2013, Tounkara joined League Two club Bristol Rovers on a short-term deal, and was released upon the expiry of his contract in May that year. Shortly after, he signed for League One club Stevenage, where he was also loaned out to Grimsby Town. He returned to France in the summer of 2014 and joined JA Drancy for the 2014–15 season. After a successful spell at Drancy, he joined Châteauroux, helping the club to achieve promotion to Ligue 2 during the 2016–17 campaign.
context_section_description: Tounkara signed a professional contract with French Ligue 2 club Sedan ahead of the 2008–09 season, although he did not make any first-team appearances during his twelve months with the club. In the summer of 2009, he was invited for a trial at Premier League club Sunderland, and subsequently joined the club on a permanent basis in July 2009 after playing in several of the reserve team's pre-season friendly fixtures. He struggled with persistent injuries during his first season at Sunderland, making thirteen appearances for the club's second-string, but did not make any first-team appearances. 
  Ahead of the 2010–11 season, Tounkara, along with team-mate Jean-Yves Mvoto, joined League One club Oldham Athletic on a season-long loan deal, in order to gain first-team experience. He made his debut for Oldham just two days after joining the club, on 7 August, playing the first 84 minutes of the game as Oldham opened the season with a 2–1 victory at Tranmere Rovers. A week later, Tounkara scored his first goal for the club, doubling the club's advantage when he raced onto a Kieran Lee pass before finishing calmly in an eventual 3–0 win over Notts County at Boundary Park. He scored a late winner in Oldham's 2–1 home win over AFC Bournemouth on 18 September, slotting in Paul Black's cross to complete a late comeback with Oldham trailing with just fifteen minutes remaining. Tounkara went on to score three goals in five games throughout late October and November 2010, all of which coming at Oldham's home ground, subsequently taking his goal tally to five for the season. In January 2011, Tounkara scored twice within the space of a week; firstly "crashing in a thumping drive" following a goalmouth scramble in Oldham's 2–0 away win at Plymouth Argyle, before scoring just before half-time in a 2–1 win over Brentford. He was a regular throughout his year at Oldham, scoring seven times in 46 appearances.
  He returned to Sunderland at the end of the season, and trained with the first-team during pre-season ahead of the 2011–12 campaign, scoring in a 2–1 friendly victory over York City on 13 July 2011. He was handed a squad number for the season after impressing manager Steve Bruce in pre-season. Despite early signs indicating Tounkara could feature for the first-team during the season, he returned to playing for Sunderland's reserve team during the first half of the season. Tounkara stated — "I really enjoyed playing with the first team and learned a lot of things from playing with the fantastic players Sunderland have. It has been difficult to get a chance when you have players like them around you. It was a good experience but disappointing I didn't get a chance after that". In March 2012, on emergency loan deadline day, Tounkara was again loaned to Oldham Athletic, this time on an agreement for the remainder of the 2011–12 season. On signing Tounkara for a second time, Oldham manager Paul Dickov said — "As we know from when he was here before he is a threat physically and also has pace". He made eight appearances, of which three were starting, scoring one goal on the last day of the season in a 2–1 victory over Carlisle United. On his return to Sunderland, he was one of nine players released by the club in May 2012, and did not make any first-team appearances during his three-year stay with the North East club.
caption: Tounkara playing for Sunderland in 2011
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