HAVING had their fingers burned once with Jack Colback, it is good to see that Sunderland’s powerbrokers are not going to experience similar misery with Connor Wickham. Once bitten; twice a damned sight more reluctant to lose a leading player for nothing.

Yesterday’s announcement of Wickham’s new four-year contract successfully resolves a saga that dragged on throughout last summer and which was threatening to become a hugely unwanted distraction next month.

Now, there will be no more questions about the 21-year-old’s future, no more back-page headlines linking him with a Premier League rival. With Wickham’s fate resolved, Gus Poyet can concentrate on adding to his squad rather than frantically protecting one of the few really saleable assets he already has.

It would be interesting to know which party blinked first during discussions, and the likelihood is that it was Sunderland rather than Wickham and his advisors.

While the striker’s camp could always fall back on the possibility of a huge signing-on fee at a West Ham United or Hull City, Sunderland’s negotiating team would have been aware of the financial implications of losing one of their leading strikers for a pittance and then having to replace him in a hurry. Swap an out-of-contract Wickham for an in-demand Danny Ings, and you would have been looking at a hit of around £10m.

That said, however, with Wickham now part of the furniture for the next four years, it is imperative that Poyet begins to get the best out of him. For all that the England Under-21 international has been much more heavily involved this season, it is hard to argue that he has been a consistently effective performer.

The only time he could really claim to have been that in a Sunderland shirt is in the final two months of last season, and the purple patch that brought five goals in the space of three games against Manchester City, Chelsea and Cardiff City provides a clear indication of how best to utilise him.

Poyet’s description of Wickham yesterday as a “young English centre-forward” was interesting. If he truly believes that to be the case, why doesn’t he play him in his best position?

Wickham has not let anyone down on the left-hand side in the opening three months of the season, and has certainly done a better job there than either Steven Fletcher or Jozy Altidore would. But for all that he has tracked back diligently and sporadically cut infield to positive effect, it still feels as though he is a square peg in a round hole when he is asked to play on the wing.

Having poured so much time, energy and, one presumes, money into retaining his services, isn’t about time Sunderland started to get the best out of him?

At his most effective, Wickham is a powerful, energetic leader of the line, dominant in the air but also skilful enough to pick up possession and run at defenders before getting off a telling shot.

It is much harder to do that out wide, where his involvement is limited and his chance of getting one-on-one with a centre-half is significantly reduced.

Starting with Wickham as the central striker might well mean dropping Fletcher to the substitutes’ bench, but the Scotsman’s form hardly demands that he is accommodated and moving Wickham inside would have the added benefit of creating a gap for a more natural wide player, such as Ricky Alvarez, to fill.

Yesterday’s news was a major tick in the box for Poyet, but it will mean little unless Wickham is given the best possible opportunity to start weighing in with goals.