Sunderland have been sweating over the fitness of striker Jozy Altidore in the last few weeks. The US International suffered a hamstring injury while on international duty. Altidore may not have been utilised much by the US national team manager Klinsmann at the World Cup 2014, but he was a key player in the team nonetheless. Altidore came on the back of his first season in the Premier League. Many expected him to struggle despite having scored a lot of goals in Dutch football and it was the case. He managed a very poor return of just 2 goals in the 38 appearances.

Jack Colback’s previous season with Sunderland saw him making 32 league appearances for Sunderland but now that his contract is just about to expire, rumors have been spreading around in relation to the future of the English midfielder.

Newcastle United, West Ham United and Aston Villa are some of the Premier League clubs which are interested in signing him and West Ham has even offered the midfielder around €50,000 a week in order to bring him into the club which is more than triple the amount of money that he is currently earning.

Sunderland manager Gus Poyet has stated that he now believes in miracles after his team managed to achieve safety in the Premier league despite being bottom of the table on Christmas Day. Only one team has managed to achieve this feat in the history of the Premier League. Sunderland will now be joining West Brom as the only two sides that have managed this achievement. Sunderland’s achievements is more remarkable considering that they had matches against title rivals Manchester City and Chelsea in the last few matches of the season.

Sunderland finished at the 17th spot in the previous Premier League season as they barely managed to drift away from the bottom relegation zone but this time around might just see them being relegated as even the coach of the squad believes that they will need a miracle in order to avoid the bottom drop spots.

"I'm very honest and I know where I am. If you look at the table and the games we have got left to win, we need a miracle. We need something unique’’.

Sunderland was knocked out of the FA Cup and the Carling Cup after losing against Hull City and Manchester City which gives Gus Poyet and his team the chance and time to solely focus on the Premier League where they currently are struggling as they located at the bottom of the standings and with only 9 matches remaining, the next results will decide if they get relegated or not.

The Premier League club has announced their financial state and registered a €23 million loss and it will get even worse for the club if they are unable to survive in the Premier League for the upcoming season.

Sunderland almost came to creating a shocking the League Cup final after managing to hold the lead over title favourites Manchester City for much of the match. In the end, they suffered a 3-1 defeat and saw the opposition left the title – the first available to English clubs in the season.

After the match, Sunderland manager Gus Poyet said that he could not have been much more pleased with the performance put in by his players, but they were ultimately beaten by a very strong team. Sunderland took the lead after just 10 minutes through Fabio Borini.

Sunderland’s chance to remain on the Premier League is in danger as they currently are at the bottom last spots of the English league. Gus Poyet will want to sign a few players that can help them avoid the relegation zone and stay at the top tier league of England at least for another season.

The Argentine striker Ignacio Scocco has been a long term interest of Sunderland and according to his father, his most likely football destination is the Stadium of Light as he was trying to be signed by River Plate and Valencia but Sunderland are leading the way on signing his services.

Steven Fletcher, the Sunderland striker, has insisted that the team have a good opportunity of surviving in English Premier League given the fact that now they are united under Gus Poyet. The Scotland player reckons that the only way is up as Gus has fixed them out a way of playing out of problems, before their position in the league became desperate.

This weekend, Sunderland confronts a crucial bottom of the table battle at 4th bottom Stoke City, where a victory would put them level on points with the team of Mark Hughes.

According to several reports, Sunderland are in advanced talks with former Brighton and Hove Albion manager Gus Poyet over the possibility of taking over from Paolo Di Canio, who was sacked a few days ago.

The reign of the Italian at the Stadium of light lasted only six months and he could manage only a handful of victories during this period. Sunderland finally managed a victory after a long time under the management of caretaker boss Kevin Ball in the League cup yesterday. The 2-0 win over Peterborough United helped them progress into the fourth round of the competition.

Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio has praised his players after they managed a stunning 3-1 win over Tottenham in the Barclays Asia trophy. Sunderland were 1-0 down in the match after a goal from Gylfi Sigurdsson.

It looked like they were going to be knocked out of the competition, but all the work done in the pre-season paid off for Paolo Di Canio and his players after they managed a stunning fightback. Cabral scored the equaliser for Sunderland before former Manchester United defender Wes Brown put the team in front.