Sunderland Squad Numbers For 2011/12 Announced

After drip feeding us for a few week's now, Sunderland have finally bestowed on us the full squad numbers for the 2011/12 season. 

There's not a whole lot of movement, however perhaps most interesting about the list is the people who haven't been given a number. Marcos Angeleri, Matt Kilgallon, Nyron Nosworthy & George McCartney come as little surprise considering they are all set to leave (we hope) but promising youngsters such as Billy Knott, Louis Laing & Blair Adams are all absent from this initial list.

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Whilst Knott & Adams are both away on international duty with England U20's at the World Cup in Colombia, they are among the most highly tipped of our youth movement. Louis Laing & Craig Lynch are also high on that list, and saw some limited first team action last season but will initially go without a number. Adam Reed, who spent time on loan at Brentford last season, and Ryan Noble also miss out.

Of course, all the above could be added at a later date, but it would seem to suggest that many will leave either permanently or on loan. Also all those youth players (i.e. Under 21) don't technically require a number as per yet, but if they were in any shape or form going to be part of the set-up through the initial part of the season you'd have thought they'd get one. Worth noting though at this time last year Jack Colback was given the No.25 shirt aged 20.

Another interesting aside is Jack Colback takes no.14, indicating he's firmly in the managers plans, where as Asamoah Gyan shifts to his lucky number 3, and Kieran Richardson takes 11. Craig Gardner takes over from Steed Malbranque to take No.8, the number he wore at Birmingham City.

Oumare Tounkara also gets a number. A man we've seen very little of, but perhaps in the League Cup or our annual crisis we might see more of the big lad.

For some reason too on SAFC.com, the numbers are also listed with position - where Richardson is now classified as a defender. Lets hope we get to see him in that position permanently and steps out from the 'odd job man' role he had last season.

Here's the full numbers anyway...

1. Craig Gordon
2. Phil Bardsley
3. Asamoah Gyan
4. Michael Turner
5. Wes Brown
6. Lee Cattermole
7. Sebastian Larsson
8. Craig Gardner
9. Fraizer Campbell
10. Connor Wickham
11. Kieran Richardson
14. Jack Colback
15. David Vaughan
16. John O'Shea
17. Ji Dong-Won
18. David Meyler
19. Titus Bramble
20. Keiren Westwood
21. Oumare Tounkara
22. Simon Mignolet
24. Trevor Carson
26. Jordan Cook
27. Ahmed Elmohamady
28. Stephane Sessegnon
29. Anton Ferdinand