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

Vito Mannone has said that the young English forward Connor Wickham should be given the credit for Sunderland’s great performances in their last few league games.

The Black Cats who are struggling to keep their place in the top tier of English football have secured 7 points in their previous three outings. It’s not that they have secured those points against weak teams. They have done that against the contenders of the title and that’s what has got their fans going again.

First, Sunderland stunned everyone by stopping City on a draw and then, they got one step further and bamboozled the Blues in their next game by 2-0.

With 3 games to go, Sunderland is currently sitting at the 17th position in the league points table and there are still chances of them ending up in the relegation zone, but, if they keep up the kind of rhythm that they have shown recently, they would surely manage to survive.

The thing which had been a major worry for Sunderland all through this season was their attack. They seemed to be lacking firepower upfront, but, with Wickham coming in, that problem has been somewhat rectified. The 21 years old has found the back of the net thrice of late.

Speaking to the press yesterday, Mannone acknowledged the impact of Wickham. The goalie said, “Connor has brought some aggressiveness into the mix which was badly needed by us. Off course, it’s a team game and thus, everyone needs to be credited, but, Connor deserves a bit more credit.”

Sunderland’s next match is going to be a big one. They will travel to Old Trafford to take on the defending champs Manchester United on 3rd of May and they will definitely not want to return empty handed from there.

Sunderland’s Vito Mannone admitted that there was nothing he could do to deny the attacking forces of Manchester City from scoring during their match a few weeks ago as they battled it out for the Capital One Cup silverware.

Wembley Stadium was the scenario which witnessed both teams going at it, against each other and it was actually Sunderland the side that managed to score the opening goal of the match with Fabio Borini finding the back of the net after 10 minutes had passed.

Unfortunately for Sunderland, it was only a matter of time until City could find the breakthrough moment as they were the dominating side for the majority of the match and Yaya Toure scored the equalizer at the 55th minute and only 1 minute later Samir Nasri gave Manchester City the lead.

It was pretty much all over when Jesus Navas scored the 3rd and last goal for Manchester City which sealed the victory for Manuel Pellegrini and his men. Vito Mannone praised the performance from their opponents as the Italian goalkeeper said that there was nothing he could to deny them from scoring.

“I thought the first one was incredible, the way it dipped down. I didn’t expect a shot like that, to be honest. It kept going away from me while I was diving. The second one as well was such a brilliant finish. It was the only spot it could go in.

“Unfortunately, we need to accept that they have got quality. But we need to be proud because the team did really well and we need to be at the same standard in every game from now on because we know we can do it.”

Mannone said: “We are proud even if we are disappointed, like any Sunderland fan. We gave everything – at least we have no regrets. We went into the game, we surprised them. We played really well in the first half and in the second half; they only came back with two class finishes, to be honest’’. Mannone admitted.

Before Vito Mannone was loaned out to Hull City back in 2010, he had spent 4 seasons playing with Arsenal and some years later, the Italian goalkeeper enjoyed 2 more years with Arsene Wenger and his men.

Vito Mannone did not experience the best of times at Arsenal as he could only manage to make 15 appearances and was eventually offloaded to Sunderland as they were determined to sign the Italian shot-stopper with a price tag believed to be around €2 million.

The former Arsenal player is now going through some of the best moments of his entire career as he recently stated on an interview after being questioned about what it feels like making a move from Arsenal to Sunderland.

“It’s something unbelievable, it’s like a dream,” said the 25-year-old, who took over as Sunderland’s first choice when Keiren Westwood suffered a shoulder injury in November. I suffered a lot in the past at Arsenal if I’m honest. I expected my chance for a long time there, but they never really gave me a real chance.

“Finally, I got it at Sunderland and I don’t want to waste a minute. I’m loving every minute of every game and when I can perform, I will do my best to help the team and to give something back to the fans, who have been incredible. It’s great to hear them singing my name.”

Mannone has become a fans favorite at Sunderland with his penalty shootout performance against Manchester United as he managed to save 2 set-pieces which helped his side defeat the team of David Moyes during the Capital One Cup match.

Sunderland’s season so far is not one that any club would want to be going through as they are sitting on the bottom spot of the Premier League as they are trying to climb positions in the league but have been unable on doing so.

The fears of getting relegated are escalating after week match-day but the summer signing Vito Mannonne said that all what Sunderland needs to do is believe in the objective they set themselves, which in this case is getting out of the bottom positions.

Mannone told the Gazette: “We knew it was an important day against Norwich. We looked at the fixtures before, and we knew that other teams would possibly not get all the points.
“It was our chance; at home against Norwich, and we didn’t take it.

“But we’re not the only team in our position. Some teams have to climb the table, and come out of the situation. You just need to believe it and do your job every day, and do your best. We’ve shown we are a good team.”

The boss of Sunderland Gus Poyet is considering making a move for the QPR shot-stopper Julio Cesar who is having more time on the bench than on the playing field as Harry Redknapp prefers using the services of another player instead of the former Inter Milan player.

An offer of £1million would be enough for Sunderland to snatch him up considering his situation in QPR but the real problem lies on his wages which is £50,000-a-week. Those wages might be too much for the budget that Sunderland has available and considering the recent string of great performances from Vito Mannonne, signing Julio Cesar is getting further and further out of reach for the relegation zone club.

Vito Mannone has expressed his happiness over the fact that his team Sunderland has made it to the final 8 in the ongoing Capital One Cup by securing a 2-1 victory against Southampton yesterday.

Mannone played for full 90 minutes in that game against Southampton and did a decent job. It was Mannone’s only third appearance for Sunderland.

Talking to the reporters at the end of the game, the 25 years Old Italian said, “It’s a fantastic win for us. Now, we will be confident going into our next league game this weekend.”

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get points from the last game, but, the way we played with only 9 guys in the second half of that game; it raised our confidence level.”

When asked how he is feeling after finally getting the opportunities to feature for the first team of Sunderland, Mannone said, “I am really happy. I had been waiting for the chances since the start of the season and honestly speaking, I had expected myself to be the first choice goalie coming into the season, but, that didn’t happen.”

“You get frustrated when you don’t get playing chances. It happens with everybody and I am no different. I wanted to be given opportunities. I had been working really hard in the training sessions.”

Mannone has arrived at the Stadium of Light this summer after leaving Arsenal. It hasn’t been revealed yet how much Sunderland had to pay to buy him.

Mannone had been in the starting XI of Sunderland in a few of their pre-season games and he was expected to start the league games too for the Black cats at the start of the ongoing season, but, Paolo Di Canio (the previous Sunderland boss) preferred Keiren Westwood ahead of him.

Premier League club Sunderland is hot on the heels of Napoli midfielder Walter Gargano with manager Paolo di Canio looking to add more spark to the centre of the midfield.

The North East club has by far been the busiest movers in the transfer market with the incumbent manager bringing in as many as eleven players in the close season as he continues his amazing squad overhaul following the club’s fight to stave off relegation last season.

But in spite of strengthening in other areas of the field, the club has failed to land a creative midfield player after their moves for Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Tom Hiddlestone and Inter Milan player Alfred Duncan fell through. And di Canio feels the midfield in the major problem in his new look Sunderland side and after scouring through the transfer markets in different countries, has set his eyes on bringing the Napoli player to the Stadium of Light.

The club already has two pacy wingers in England international Adam Johnson and Italian international Emanuele Giaccherini to play down the flanks. But according to the Italian manager, they do not have a good quality ball playing central midfielder capable of opening up defenses on a regular basis.

Gargano spent last season on loan with Inter Milan at the San Siro but the Milanese giants opted against making the move permanent and having been left out of the squad for the Emirates Cup by Napoli boss Rafael Benitez, it is thought that the player himself is keen to move to the Premier League as well.

Sunderland is also in the market for two top quality full backs as di Canio continues to stamp his own authority on the side he inherited from Martin O’Neill at the end of last season and managed to keep in the top flight.

New Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone has fired a warning at rival Kieran Westwood that he has come to the club to fight for a place in the first team.

Westwood, a Republic of Ireland international, has endured a very difficult two year spell at the club, finding himself as the second choice and he thinks the time is now right to become the first choice keeper for the club, but manager Paolo Di Canio has swiftly moved on to buy Mannone from Arsenal and has already briefed him to make things difficult for Westwood and provide competition for him.

The Italian spent eight years at North London and was a bit part player for most of that time and he is unwilling to play that same role again after moving to Wearside. Speaking after his move, he stated that he is a fighter and he loves a fight. Vito Mannone added that if there isn’t a fight to be had, then it makes things difficult because he is not someone who is habituated with watching proceeding from outside and wants to be in the thick of things at all times.

He mentioned that as soon as the offer to join Sunderland presented itself, he was certain that it was his next club because it is a place with a rich history and he is glad to have been able to make the move. He also mentioned that he needs to get back into perfect shape before the start of the new season and is aiming to work that extra hour to achieve it.

Vito Mannone joined Arsenal as a 17 year old in 2005 and has made only 27 appearances for the Gunners and has also spent time on loan at Hull City as well as Barnsley to gain experience.