ALESE ON INJURY RECOVERY

Aji Alese was happy with Sunderland's defensive performance in their friendly against Al-Shabab, as he played 45 minutes ahead of our game against Millwall next weekend.

DEFENDED WELL

“It was a good contest, a good quality game from both sides. We created good chances, kept the ball well, we could have kept it better at times. But we defended well, kept a good clean sheet, got the goal in the first-half and won the game. So overall, it was good to top off a good week of training and good to get a win, score goals and win games.”

INJURY RETURN

“I felt good. I feel like there’s still a bit of sharpness to get back following the game but I think it’s been five and a half weeks now and I felt good. It was only 45 minutes so I still need to get myself back up to 90 minutes, but overall it was good."

RECOVERY TIME

“It is always tough being injured as your job is to play football and you want to be out there but with this international break I haven’t missed as many games as I would have if I [was injured] at the beginning of January for example - I was lucky in that sense. I’ve been working hard, I was in last week when some of the other lads had time off, to get myself back and I’m happy to be back.”

BREAK

“It’s different and I think it’s the first time any of us have experienced something like this. It’s given a few of us the opportunity to get back to full fitness where we would have missed more games [had it not been for the break]. This week has been hard but it has been good and hopefully we have gained a lot from it.”