Gordon eyes Black Cats return

Gordon: Recovering well

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Sunderland goalkeeper Craig Gordon is eager to put his injury woes behind him and prove to new manager Steve Bruce that he can be the club's No.1.

Gordon has already returned to the club's training ground and is working his way back to full fitness after undergoing knee surgery in May.

The former Hearts man, who was signed for £9million in August 2007, had already missed a substantial chunk of the campaign with an ankle problem with Marton Fulop taking over the gloves in his absence.

Scotland international Gordon admitted he found the last campaign tough, but is now focused on getting back to full fitness in time for the new season.

Bouncing back

He told the club's official website: "After starting last season fairly well, it just fell away after that and it was just one thing after another for me.

"I have not experienced that before in my career, but hopefully I have got all that out of the way at the same time and I can concentrate on getting fit and healthy and have a good run at it this season.

"It was a new experience for me and it was difficult to handle, but these things happen over the course of a player's career and it's about bouncing back and handling it, coming back fitter and stronger and ready to go again."

Gordon's team-mates are not due back until next Thursday when Bruce will start the process of assessing his squad in earnest, but his rehabilitation work is already well under way.

Training

He added: "It's not going too badly. I'm slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things.

"I'm at the rehab phase now, just getting the knee used to the rigours of the training that we can expect over the next few weeks.

"The operation was to clean the knee of debris, smooth the surfaces, making sure that everything was working properly again.

"Now it's a case of building up the muscles around it and getting back into training as soon as possible.

"Hopefully I will be ready for the start of the season."