SUNDERLAND striker Connor Wickham will be put through extra training sessions between now and the end of the season as Martin O’Neill looks to the England under-21 man to move up a level in the coming months.

Wickham cost the Black Cats £8.1million in the summer but is still adapting to life in the Premier League, partly down to a string of injuries slowing his progress.

The impressive return of Fraizer Campbell has bumped Wickham down the pecking order, and O’Neill admits the former Ipswich man remains a “work in progress” who needs to hone his technique. However, Wickham has agreed to afternoon sessions under the tutelage of O’Neill and his coaching staff – something which has impressed the Sunderland chief.

The Black Cats boss said: “I go back to the moment I arrived, he had been out about five weeks so when Nicklas Bendtner failed a fitness test and we asked him to come in I was delighted with him with his 75 minutes.

“He has had an injury since then and he has taken time to recover, but he is very young and willing. He needs what I would consider a bit of proper attention in terms of him being a

young lad. He needs more time to develop and afternoons where he will just be working on technique. He wants to improve and he is not snubbing that.

“We have done a little bit with him and now if the weather clears up and there are no midweek games that will help. Connor is a work in progress, absolutely.”

Wickham’s steady progress under the Ulsterman has been in stark contrast to the stellar form of Stéphane Sessègnon, Sunderland’s midweek match-winner at Middlesbrough.

The Benin international has been much-improved under O’Neill and Sunderland are increasingly making use of his ability to conjure something out of nothing.