Quinn rubbishes Gordon rumours

Gordon: Causing controversy

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Niall Quinn has denied rumours suggesting Sunderland's decision not to play Craig Gordon is financially-motivated.

Speculation around the Black Cats camp has claimed that the Scotland international has been overlooked in recent weeks in order to prevent the payment of a clause in his contract.

Gordon was surprisingly pulled from action ahead of Sunderland's outing against West Brom, helping to fuel the malicious gossip.

It is claimed that the Black Cats were reluctant to pay a £330,000 bonus to Gordon's former side Hearts, due once the keeper made his 50th appearance for the club.

That accusation has been knocked back, though, by chairman Quinn, who claims there is no ulterior motive behind Gordon's recent omission from the team.

He told the Sunderland Echo: "It was claimed that Craig didn't play because he was on 49 appearances and we as a club didn't want to make a payment to his former club.

"None of us even knew he was on 49 appearances!

"Craig had a reaction to a knee problem. It's almost offensive that someone would think that after all the effort we've made and money we've poured into the club, that we would consider not playing our goalkeeper in an important match because of a payment.

"There are rumours all the time in football and I'm not going to get into the habit of commenting every time but the person who made this up, better not meet me!"

Injury

Sunderland boss Ricky Sbragia has also denied having any knowledge about Gordon currently standing on 49 appearances and the repercussions which would arise from him making one more.

"I don't get into that side of things at all so I didn't have a clue about that," he said.

"All I know is that I was grateful to Craig for coming up to us late in the day and admitting he had a problem with the knee.

"Players are always likely to play on with an injury but that's often the worst thing they can do. The last thing I would have wanted to do was play Craig, aggravate the injury and find I'd lost him for the season.

"The knee injury seems similar to that Teemu Tainio had, so we're going to have to assess it week by week, and game by game.

"We thought a few weeks ago that Teemu was just about out for the season but then he made a quick recovery and has been available for our last few games. Hopefully the same will happen with Craig."