A return to action and a winning one at that, Jan Kirchhoff was absolutely delighted to make his long-awaited comeback in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Leicester City.
The German got the call at the interval and he made an immediate impact, settling into his groove with typically crisp passes spraying the play from side to side.
With 63 minutes played he connected with Seb Larsson’s corner to head Sunderland into the lead, albeit via Robert Huth who inadvertently diverted the ball past Rob-Robert Zieler.
And although the goal went down as a Huth own goal, Kirchhoff made his case post-match.
“For sure it was my goal, a ‘bullet header’ as you say in England and he had no choice but to put it in his own net,” grinned Kirchhoff.
“I was itching to get on and the sooner the better, so when I got the call at half-time I was really pleased.”
He continued: “Personally it’s nice for me to be back on the pitch but for us, as a team, it is great to get another win here at the Stadium of Light.
“We’ve built more on our confidence and we want to keep this feeling going, especially when we are at home because when we are we need to be sleek and win as many games as we can for our fans.
“We want teams to dread coming to the Stadium of Light so it’s good that we’ve been able to win again, and we have two more home games coming up so let’s keep it going.
“Christmas is a busy time in the Premier League but we have a good chance of picking up some points."