Despite being linked to various clubs in England as well as abroad, it appears as if Adam Johnson would stay at the Stadium of Light this summer.

There have been speculations in the last month or so that Johnson might be moving to Liverpool or to the Ligue 1 club Monaco, but, according to the reports coming through, that’s not going to happen as Gus Poyet, the Sunderland boss, doesn’t want to let the 26-year old Englishman go.
The Uruguayan manager is believed to be very impressed with the way Johnson played in the last few matches of the 2013-14 Season.

Sunderland had to win most of their matches towards the end of the last season to make sure that they don’t get relegated to the second tier of English football and they did that thanks to the wonderful performances put up by some of their players including Johnson.

Johnson had been brought at the Stadium of Light a couple of years ago in 2012. He had cost the Black Cats an amount of 10 million pounds.

For the first one and half years that he spent at the club, Johnson was not consistent at all. But, he lifted his game at a crucial time in the last season to help Sunderland finish above the relegation zone and by doing that; he managed to get himself into Poyet’s plans for the future.

However, it would be interesting to see what Poyet does in case he gets a lucrative bid for Johnson. As things stand right now, he is no mood to sell the winger, but, in the world of football, nothing can be ruled out.

Johnson has so far played 70 Premier League matches for Sunderland in which he has managed to score 13 goals.

Sunderland’s survival in the Premier League has led to Gus Poyet being speculated to being named as the manager of the season as Sunderland at some point in time seemed to be doomed at the bottom of the English league but a few of crucial victories allowed the team to remain competing in the Premier League at least for another season.

This survival has been hailed as a ‘’miracle’’ according to fans of the club and even Poyet himself and now the Uruguayan is being taken into consideration for other teams in the Premier League including Southampton and West Ham but Poyet remains confident that he will remain in charge of Sunderland for at least another season.

Poyet said: ‘’Every single manager in the world when he finishes the season has a meeting with the chairman of the football club, winning the league, going down, in the middle, having been named somewhere else, with contract, without contract it's natural’’.

‘’Every now and then when a manager says, "I need to meet with the chairman to see where we are going", you all start to think, "He's leaving" or "He's not happy" or "There's a problem", but it's nothing. Yes, I want to know where we are going, if it's possible not to make the same mistakes that we have made in the last couple of years because I don't want to go through another year like this one’’.

When Poyet was asked if he expects to remain in charge of Sunderland, he responded by saying yes.

Asked if he expected to be in charge in August, Poyet said: 'Yes,' before adding with a smile: 'You are scaring me now. What do you know that I don't know?

‘’The rumors are natural; there are so many rumors all the time. But that means you are doing something special or you are being recognized for something, whatever it is’’.

Sunderland suffered yet another setback in their fight against relegation after losing 5-1 at the hands of Tottenham during the weekend. This results has led to Sunderland remaining in the rock bottom position of the table, while they are without a win since the middle of February. Back then, they managed a 1-0 win over Southampton in the FA Cup that appeared to improve their chances of avoiding relegation since there were several matches still left in the Premier league. However, after almost 2 months without a win, the players are low on confidence.

This was especially evident in the 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Tottenham. After the match, former Manchester United defender Wes Brown revealed that he was culpable for most of the goals conceded by his team. However, he still remains confident of avoiding relegation with six matches left in the season. They travel to Everton in the next match to face a team that has top four ambitions in sight. This was the biggest defeat of the season for Sunderland, as manager Gus Poyet has come under increasing pressure for failing to turn around the club’s fortunes.

Another defeat in the upcoming match against Everton will be catastrophic for Sunderland, who have been in the Premier league for the last few years.

“Their player has got behind me for the first and second goals. I should be closer and then I just couldn’t get there. We can talk all we want to about having to cut out the mistakes, but we have to do it. We have to do better when we’re going forwards too. We’re not helping ourselves. We’ve just got to keep going. The table doesn’t lie, it’s bad. But we’ve got to keep going. Unless we can produce 90 minutes where we’re 100%, we can only blame ourselves,” said Brown.

Sunderland’s Wes Brown has seen his time limited with the relegation threatened club due to a long-term knee injury but after making a full recovery he has been placed into the starting lineup of Gus Poyet since November which was the time when the 34 years old defender started getting back in action and playing with the Premier League threatened club.

Despite having completed his recovery from his knee injury not too long ago, Brown believes that the more matches he plays is better for him.

“Playing three games a week is probably better for me. The next day is a warm-down and then it’s a light session, which in a way, is a lot easier. If you’ve got two or three hard days, long sessions, in a week, it can take its toll on my knees. Ask anyone, if you play a game, it does so much more for you than anything in training.” Wes Brown said.

Wes Brown has formed a superb central defensive pairing with John O’Shea in this season as they have kept clean sheets on a large number of matches in which they played together.
Sunderland has a very busy schedule ahead of them, as they have to face off against some of the top clubs in the Premier League including Everton, Tottenham, Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United just to name a few.

Gus Poyet will have to secure valuable points in their upcoming matches if he wants to steer clear away from the bottom relegation zone but head coach of the club has revealed the importance of having Wes Brown back at his disposal.

"It's been great for me to have him. When I came here, I don't think too many people at the club were counting on Wes, but he's been very important. He has great experience, but he also has great understanding of the game. He sees danger and that's why he's played at the top level and won trophies’’. Poyet stated.

Wes Brown played in both legs of the Capital One Cup where Sunderland faced off against Manchester United and despite having to play against his former club; the defender stated that he feels no sympathy for helping Sunderland defeat the club where he used to play for 13 years.

"I don't feel any sympathy for Manchester United at all," said the 34-year-old. "I'm a Sunderland fan now. Obviously I'm a United fan as well but we're playing them so I'm Sunderland all the way."

"Back in September I could not imagine this club would be going to a Wembley final, and that's the honest truth," acknowledged Brown. "If you'd asked in September if there was a chance of us being in a final, nobody here would have said 'yes'. We've come such a long way since then. We're a strong bunch of lads and hopefully we can just keep this going now in the league." Brown said.

Wes Brown has been a player that struggles with injury problems, this was evident back when he used to play for Manchester United back in 1999 when a string of injuries left him out and unable to play any competitive match during the season of that year. He did manage to make a full recovery the following year when he made 28 appearances for Manchester United and even received praise from Sir.Alex Ferguson who considered him to be the most talented defender of the club at that time.

The cycle continued some years later when Wes Brown had to make an abrupt conclusion to his season in January 2012 and could not play a single match for Sunderland during that year after tearing his knee ligament.

Sunderland’s Wes Brown is a player that has seen his career taking a few setbacks with consistent injuries that has slowed down his progression and further limited his time on the playing ground with the rest of the team.

The former Manchester United defender suffered from an injury that forced him to out of the pitch for more than 1 year, Brown did eventually complete his recovery and came back into the team on November and since then has become one of the most consistent players for Sunderland in this season.

His performances have been outstanding at the heart of the defence along with John O’Shea. West Brown demonstrated just how fit he is by playing for 120 minutes during Sunderland’s Capital One Cup match against Chelsea as the encounter went through extra-time.

When the match finalized, John O’Shea said he was not surprised at the recovery that Wes Brown accomplished and his current form: “The boys were laughing after the Chelsea game saying he should be fresh as a daisy after so long out! Look, if he stays fit, we have a much better chance, that is for sure. He has not surprised me at all’’.

“I know how hard he has worked to get himself back fit. Luck has been on his side at least to stay away from those little niggles. Hopefully, that will continue.”

Wes Brown faced another setback as he received a red card after a tackle that he made on Ricky van Wolfswinkel in the last few minutes of Sunderland’s match against Norwich City and despite the replay footage showing that there in fact was no contact being made on the players, the referee Martin Akitson still decided to sanction Brown with the red card.

The newly appointed manager of Sunderland, Gus Poyet, has admitted that his team didn’t play with a positive attitude in its last league game against Swansea City. Sunderland lost that game by a huge margin of 0-4.

It was Sunderland’s 6th defeat on the trot. They are the last team in the league points table currently.

The game against Swansea City was Poyet’s first game as Sunderland boss and he would have realized that life is not going to be easy for him at Stadium of Light.

In the first half of the game, the Black Cats played decently. Although they couldn’t score a goal but, they didn’t concede either. It was a goalless half.

But, after the half time break, Swansea was all over the visitors. Their approach was aggressive and with a flurry of goals, they put the Black Cats under pressure. Inside the first 20 minutes in the second half, Sunderland was down by 0-3.

Later on, Steven Fletcher’s own goal in the 80th minute almost ended Sunderland’s chances of making a comeback in the game.

Talking to the reporters in the post match press conference, Poyet said, “We need to start winning matches now. We can’t suffer defeats continuously.”

“We still have got plenty of time and I believe we can bounce back. We will be training hard in the next few days.”

“We need to make improvements in a few areas. I can’t say how much time it will take us to make those improvements. May be 5 days or may be a month, I don’t know. I just hope we improve quickly and break our losing streak.”

Sunderland has to play its next game in front of its home crowd. That game is against Newcastle United and will take place on 27th of October.

Sunderland winger Adam Johnson has termed the return of Wes Brown to first team action this summer as a brand new signing and considers him alongside the eleven new players brought in by manager Paolo di Canio in an amazing summer shopping spree.

The 33 year old former England international has not featured for the Black Cats since January 2012 due to a recurring knee problem and this is the first time that Johnson, who moved to the Stadium of Light in August last year and manager di Canio will get a chance to look at him. The former Manchester United player has been a regular at the club’s pre-season training camp and scored during their Asia Trophy match against Tottenham Hotspur as well.

Speaking to BBC Newcastle, the England winger stated that the club has got a world class centre back returning in the form of Wes Brown and that can mean only good news for what was seen as a leaky defense at the back. Johnson went on to add that it feels that he is the best among the new signings made by manager Paolo di Canio although he is not a new signing but according to Johnson, it definitely felt that way.

Johnson went on to state that it was clear how great a player he actually is. He added that the players have seen how composed he is and on form, he is absolutely top class and Johnson is confident if the club can keep Wes Brown they will definitely be a better team overall.

Brown was brought to the Stadium of Light from Manchester United by former manager Steve Bruce but with injury playing a major role in his progress, Brown has been limited to just 22 starts in his two seasons at the club.

Joe Kinnear is lining up his first signing as the new Director of Football at Newcastle United and he is going for a deal that will not please many fans of the club – as he chases the signature of released midfielder Phil Bardsley from arch rivals Sunderland.

According to reports from the camp of the former Manchester United youth team player, the Magpies have already made tentative enquiries into the availability of the player who has been released by the Black Cats manager Paolo di Canio as he continues his stunning summer clear out at the Stadium of Light.

Moreover, Kinnear is also not being out off by the bad boy image that the player has, after being picture lying down on a casino floor with a pile of £ 50 notes. But if Kinnear does decide to go for the 30 year old right back, after having not signed a single player in the close season, he will face stiff competition for the Sunderland player from fellow Premier League rivals Fulham as well as Championship club Blackburn Rovers.

Kinnear, who has already been a very controversial appointment at the club by owner Mike Ashley has seen himself involved in a lot of controversies and with the former manager going for a player released from their fierce rivals, it will definitely not sit well with a club that has deep rooted hatred for the Wearside club.

However, Kinnear is refusing to be deterred in his pursuit of the player he has apparently admired since his days at Manchester United and tried to sign when he was released from Old Trafford. It just needs to be seen whether manager Alan Pardew gives the go ahead to bring the Sunderland wing back to the club following the departure of Danny Simpson to QPR.

New Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio has said that he cannot wait for the Chelsea match during the weekend. The north-east club appointed the former Swindon Town manager as the replacement for Martin O'Neill within a few days after his sacking.

The appointment of the 44-year-old has drawn mixed reaction due to the enigmatic character. He will be having one of the toughest assignments for a manager at a new club, as he will be leading his team to face Chelsea during the weekend. The away trip to Stamford Bridge will be one of the toughest between now and then of the season for Sunderland.

The team are just one point above the relegation zone with only seven matches remaining in the campaign. Di Canio has recalled how he has experienced the success against Chelsea as a player with West Ham United. The 44-year-old Italian scored a stunning volley back in 2006. He has said that it is extremely important that the players make an impact in the first match itself. Due to the fact that they are facing the European champions, Di Canio has said that there is extra motivation within the squad.

However, Di Canio will have to deal with several injury problems in his squad with the likes of Carlos Cuellar doubtful. "(We are) away from home against Chelsea, where obviously I have good memories and scored when I was a footballer. But I'm not a footballer now, I'm a manager and now I hope my players will score there and give us some points. It's fantastic. The players will be motivated on their own; they live to play on the big stage. Obviously we are going to give them extra motivation to try to get a very good result," said Di Canio ahead of the trip to Chelsea on Sunday evening.