Cats goal in good hands says Marton Fulop

Nov 18 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

Two months out of the team has been torture for Fulop, who admits he grows restless when he’s not playing first-team football.

Thanks to Gordon’s injury woes, that hasn’t been for long over the last couple of seasons – but every run out of the first XI is difficult for the Hungary goalkeeper to stomach.

“It’s not nice. You’re here to play,” he said. “As a foreign player playing here you miss your family but if you’re playing it doesn’t hurt quite so much.

“But in football, you should be looking to play. I have never been someone who is willing to sit on the bench and pick up my wage.

“That would be easy money but I’ve always wanted to work hard and to prove to my family, my friends and my team-mates that I’m a good goalkeeper.

“I think in the long-term, that attitude brings you rewards. You will get what you deserve. It also means that I’m in a good condition to play now.”

Sunderland should at least be assured that Fulop is now over the heel injury that troubled him in the opening weeks of the season.

He played with the aid of pain-killing injections but admits his desperation to help Sunderland out – Gordon was injured for the first month of the campaign – may have aggravated the injury.

He revealed: “It was the last pre-season game and I did my heel. It was a bad injury, it was sore walking and for the first three games I played with injections.

“You can’t do that forever and there was a time to say ‘I need a rest’. It took five or six weeks to heal properly and in that time Craig came in and did fine.

“It was no question of the boss changing a winning team and a keeper playing well. Injuries are a different question and now I hope I can step in and do what I did last season – play well.

“The injections take away a bit of the pain but the injury and the infection is still there – or maybe getting worse. So I think that we took the right decision to risk it when we did.”