After seeking a permanent move to Sunderland, Vito Mannone has been impressive for the relegation threatened club. He was named as the Sunderland player’s Player of the Year for last season. Despite this accolade, black cats manager Gus Poyet decided to bring in Manchester City reserve goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon on a free transfer. Now, Sunderland have two goalkeepers capable of playing as the first choice. Pantilimon is aware that he must fight hard in order to depose Mannone from first-team spot, but he is ready to take on the fight.

At just 27 years of age, Pantilimon will represent a significant challenge for Mannone. Last season, the 6’8” goalkeeper made seven Premier league appearances as he came close to replacing Joe Hart on a permanent basis. However, his performances were not good enough to do so while Hart also returned back to form. After the end of his contract, he decided to join Sunderland aware of the fact that first-team spot is not guaranteed. Following several loans spells, Mannone seems to be settled at Sunderland. Last season, he made 29 league appearances and kept 11 clean sheets, which is an impressive record considering that Sunderland spent most of last season bottom of the table.

During his three years at the Etihad stadium, Pantilimon made only 29 appearances. “Everyone wants to be in the first XI, but Vito is a good guy and a good keeper. It’s important we all work together to help the team. I found out the manager wanted me here which was great news. I want to be number one in the national team, I’m young and I need to play. It’s a good opportunity to come here. I had a good talk with the manager, I know his ideas and ambitions and I hope we can do good things together,” said Pantilimon.

Vito Mannone is believed to be unhappy with his club Sunderland signing the Romanian goalie Costel Pantilimon and because of that; he has started to think about his future now.

It should not surprise people if Mannone makes an away move during the upcoming summer transfer window. According to the reports, he has been approached by some good clubs and he has even asked the Sunderland management that he is willing for transfer.

The Sunderland officials, however, have denied that Mannone has made a transfer request. They are quite confident that the Italian international would stay at the Stadium of Light and would compete with Pantilimon for a regular place in the starting line up.

Mannone had made his way to the Stadium of Light last summer after leaving Arsenal and he proved to be a fantastic buy for the Black Cats. He was given a lot of playing time in his debut season and he lived up to the faith of the management as his performance in most of the matches was quite decent.

Mannone’s contribution was immense in the 4 victories that Sunderland secured towards the end of the last season to survive in the league. So, he had played his part after his arrival, but, despite that, the club has brought in a tough competition for him in the form of Pantilimon and that quite rightly has made him unhappy.

As far as Pantilimon is concerned, he had been at Manchester City since the last 3 years, but, had not been playing regularly there. He was Joe Hart’s understudy and used to feature only when the English goalie was rested.

But, in the limited no. of appearances that Pantilimon made last season, he impressed a lot of people including the Black Cats boss Gus Poyet and that led to his signing.

Sunderland’s Vito Mannone praised Gus Poyet as the Italian goalkeeper believes that the Uruguayan coach is the main reason on why the club has avoided being relegated and still remains fighting in the Premier League.

“The manager has been massive for us. He himself would say it is all about the players because that’s what he does. But at the end of the day, it was him who came in and organized us, it was him who came up with the way of playing, and it was him who selected the players’’.

“He organized the club and the team properly, and towards the end of the season you saw the benefit of that. He was trying to do things right from the very first moment he came into the club, but because it takes time to adapt we were a little bit inconsistent as we tried to follow his approach. But I think you saw how well it went once we had adapted to it and we put that great winning run together which saved us and that came from the manager.” Mannone announced.

Mannone continued on expressing some suggestions for the club and their upcoming seasons as the Italian performer believes that Sunderland should hold on to the majority of their players as it will help them on accomplishing more important things in the future.

“I’m sure that we need to keep the same core of the team because I think we have a good squad. We have a great combination of talents in the team. We have players who can win you a game, but we also have players with character’’.

“Those players may not be technically perfectly yet, but they can get better, and they have already shown their value. I could run through every member of the team who kept their heads in an incredibly difficult situation’’. Mannone added on.

Sunderland managed to escape out of the bottom relegation zone and Poyet will be hoping he can avoid any further dramatic season conclusions and secure higher spots in the Premier League