Graham Ready For Sunderland Return

Danny Graham has let it be known that he feels there's still a chance he could do something in a Sunderland shirt once his loan spell at Middlesbrough expires this summer.

Speaking with the Hartlepool Mail the striker said;

There's a new manager there now and I want to go back there in the summer and see where I stand.

Until then I don't know what's going to happen, so I've got to get my head down, work hard in the off season and see what comes of it.

Clearly fancying his chances under Gus Poyet, the striker who failed to hit any sort of heights at Sunderland also found time to talk about his time on Wearside, which wasn't helped apparently by Martin O'Neill's departure or madcap Italians;

Martin O'Neill was there and I think I only got five or six weeks with him then he was out the door and Paolo Di Canio came in.

He did his job, got us safe and that was the main objective for the club.

In pre-season I was the fittest I've ever been and then he said I had to go out on loan, but that's football, you take your highs with your lows and just get on with it.

It's nice to know that despite feeling the brunt of many fans anger at his lack of goal-scoring prowess at the club, he doesn't appear to hold any bitterness.

That said, it's unlikely that Gus Poyet will be the one to get him back to the form which persuaded us to part with best part of £5m for him in the first place. Never say never though.