The latest Sunderland news, via Blake Burns.
From an England international to Scotland’s No1. As Sunderland’s luckless defender Aji Alese returns from his loan spell at Portsmouth with yet another serious injury, we look at some other former Sunderland players who have suffered injury problems in the past.
Alese’s time at Championship strugglers Pompey has ended early due to a torn quad. The 25-year-old played just 11 minutes for Portsmouth in a 1-0 defeat to Preston North End but has now been ruled out until the summer and has returned to Wearside. The 25-year-old centre-back has made just 41 league appearances for Sunderland since arriving from West Ham on the summer of 2022.
But which other players have famously seen more of the treatment table than the pitch while on Wearside?
We take a look at four former Black Cats who had little luck, fitness-wise.
Craig Gordon
Sunderland paid £9million for Gordon, making his transfer a British record for a goalkeeper at the time. He went on to make 94 appearances for the Black Cats. However, during the 2008-09 season, he played only 12 times after suffering an ankle injury during the opening months of the campaign. The Scotland international was forced off in a 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in November 2009 after breaking his arm, and missed nine consecutive matches.
The back end of the 2010-11 campaign saw Gordon need knee surgery resulting in missing the end of the campaign and the majority of the 11-12 season before he was then replaced by Belgian international Simon Mignolet. Gordon made his final appearance for Sunderland in a 2-2 draw with Bolton Wanderers before moving to Celtic where he made 242 appearances. The 43-year-old shot stopper is currently playing for Hearts, who played Sunderland in July for his testimonial.
Fraizer Campbell
Campbell missed a year and a half of football during his time on Wearside. Having scored four goals in the 2009-10 season, the forward started the first three games of the following campaign before being substituted at half-time in a 1-0 win over Manchester City after suffering a ligament tear and missed not only the rest of that season, but also 22 games in 2011-12.
Campbell scored on his return to action in a 3-0 win over Norwich, but would only score one more goal for the Black Cats – in a 3-1 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford. Campbell left Wearside in the January 2013 transfer window for Cardiff City and helped them secure promotion to the Premier League.
The striker then scored for the Bluebirds in a Premier League game in Cardiff which saw Sunderland come from 2-0 behind to snatch a point with a deflected Jack Colback strike. But one high point amid Campbell’s injury frustration on Wearside was winning his only senior England cap - against the Netherlands in February 2012.
Duncan Watmore
Watmore’s Sunderland career was hindered by a number of knee and ankle injuries. Now 31, the then youngster broke into the Black Cats side under Sam Allardyce making 13 consecutive appearances including scoring from the bench in a 2-0 Premier League win over Stoke City in November 2015.
The winger was then substituted 26 minutes into a 2-2 draw at Anfield after suffering an ankle injury which ruled him out for two months, but scored the final goal on his return from injury in a 3-0 win at Norwich. The England youth international was a regular under Allardyce’s successor David Moyes, playing in the first 14 games of the 2016-17 campaign, including 12 starts. But he picked a serious knee injury late on in Sunderland’s 2-1 win over champions Leicester City in December 2016.
The injury ended Watmore’s season and he didn’t return to action until September 2017. Then, just two months later, he suffered another knee injury in a 2-2 Championship draw with Millwall. The recurring injury kept Watmore out for a year, and he then suffered an ankle injury which ruled him out for the rest of the 2018-19 season. Following the Covid-interrupted 2019-20 season, Sunderland decided not to renew Watmore’s contract.
Jordan Willis
Willis arrived on Wearside from Coventry in the summer of 2019 during the Lads’ second consecutive season in League One. The defender played 36 out of the 37 games in the Covid-hit campaign. But the following season, he was only able to register 15 league appearances and in the 2-1 away defeat to Shrewsbury Town suffered a patellar tendon rupture which meant he never played another game for the club.
Ahead of the 2021-22 season, in which Sunderland went on to secure promotion to the Championship, Willis was ruled out for the entire campaign, but was allowed to continue his rehabilitation at the club – and then train with them - even beyond the expiry of his contract the following summer. After a short stint at Wycombe Wanderers, Willis now plays for Northampton Town and has made 64 appearances across three seasons for The Cobblers.
Continue Reading