Titus Bramble has transformed opinions at Sunderland with an excellent first season at the club. He told chief sports writer Luke Edwards about the role Steve Bruce has played in rebuilding his career.

HE was sick of hearing it from overly-critical elements in media and tired of being told it by ill-informed supporters, so you would have thought the last thing Titus Bramble needed to hear from Steve Bruce was that he was not a good player.

The conversation came shortly after Bruce’s arrival as manager at Wigan Athletic, a few days after Bramble had begun life under his new boss with a horrendous mistake in the first minute of his first game in charge against Everton.

It might have been an awkward moment, the beginning of the end of his Wigan career just a handful of months after he had left Newcastle United with his reputation in tatters.

Instead, it was arguably the best piece of advice Bramble has been given.

Despite being an England under-21 international, despite helping Newcastle qualify for the Champions League, despite playing in the middle of a back four which beat Juventus 1-0 in that competition and despite being an integral part of a backline which qualified for the second group stage of the competition, Bramble was turned into laughing stock at St James’ Park.

He played his part in that. There were terrible moments and embarrassing gaffes, but there were also long periods of class and composure.

As Bramble is able to reflect now, for all of the criticism and the jokes at his expense, as a young man in his early 20s, he was playing for one of the top four sides in the country in club football’s biggest competition.

“Maybe I had issues with my concentration, but people tend to forget I was a young boy when I joined Newcastle,” said Bramble, who was speaking to mark Sunderland’s support for the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, which will see them wear the charity’s new wristbands before today’s clash with Wolves.

“It is part of the game for young players – it is difficult to concentrate fully all the time, but the more games you play as a centre-half the more mature and experienced you get and hopefully I am showing that. I relish defending now.

“Maybe at times at Newcastle I thought I was more than a defender when I was on the ball.