IT could be the effects of the United States’ successful World Cup campaign or the fact he was named captain of his country just last week. It is safe to assume that a fresh start is also on Jozy Altidore’s mind, but whatever the reasons are he appears to be in a positive place on Wearside.

Altidore has a spring in his step around the Academy of Light. The towering, powerful unit of a centre-forward lost some of his American charm last season, when his own teething problems in the Premier League coupled with Sunderland’s battle against relegation took its toll.

Every footballer is human, so it was impossible not to be affected by the events of his first year as a Sunderland player. Having survived this summer’s squad readjustments during the transfer window, Altidore clearly has a desire to prove his worth before he does eventually depart. He has some unfinished business, namely proving that he can hack it in English football.

Just one league goal since his £6.5m move from AZ Alkmaar 13 months ago hardly suggest he is a prolific marksman. However, boasting a goal almost every three games for his country does. And there have been a number of occasions in a Sunderland shirt – particularly his all-conquering display at Newcastle in February – which have highlighted the ability Jurgen Klinsmann, for one, knows he has.

There are those who have already given up on him, but the majority of Black Cats supporters are willing him to do well. He has become something of a cult hero because of his barren run in front of goal at the start of his life in the North-East, even if he has tried not to take any notice of what has been said about him, good or bad, in the stands.

“Everyone keeps saying there is this support for me ... I just try to focus on going about my business,” said Altidore, who could not stop scoring during his time in Holland after previously struggling with Hull City. “I try to affect the games I play in, scoring goals hasn’t come yet, but I just try to do that. I don’t try to focus on what is going on anywhere else.

“It comes with the territory. When it goes good you know you have the spotlight on you, so when it goes bad you have to take it. That’s just part of it, we all had to take it and there’s nothing I can do or any of us can do about what happened last season. You just have to hope and work hard.

“I will start to listen to the fans! I want to score my goals, obviously. I am a striker. Everybody is desperate to score goals. It is difficult. I would be more depressed if it was just me not scoring, though. There are other guys too. So maybe it’s more than just the strikers. But at the same time we do have more pressure on us to score goals as strikers, we have to try to fix that.

“It’s strange because with America almost every time I play it goes well on the big stage. I want to succeed here, otherwise I would have gone. We all do. Me, Connor (Wickham), (Steven) Fletcher ... we all do, otherwise we would have gone.”

Altidore is correct. Apart from the five goals Wickham scored in April, which ultimately kept Sunderland up, the England Under-21s striker had not scored for the club all season. In fact he had not scored in the top-flight since October 2011.

Then there was Fletcher, who struggled throughout last season for form and fitness. The £12m Scotland international only scored three times last season, while goals were few and far between throughout the squad, which had a huge bearing on Sunderland’s plight. Altidore was merely just a part of that ailing machine.

“Of course last season affected me,” said the 24-year-old. “I was in a team that was struggling. We couldn’t score goals, we were on our way down and it felt terrible to be part of that. It was a really bad feeling.

“To come away from that, be safe, it’s kind of gave everyone a lift. It’s something nobody wants to be part of, a team that goes down. Not just the team, but for the city and the fans too. These people live for the team, we are all happy to be part of it and we want to make up for last season’s struggles.”

What have helped Altidore over the summer were his experiences with Team USA. Despite having his World Cup cut short because of a hamstring problem in the early part of the opening 2-1 win over Ghana, he still enjoyed being part of such an occasion with his country.

To have progressed from the group stage before running Belgium close in July, the USA were greeted to an incredible reception when they returned from duty in Brazil. Then, following Tim Howard’s decision to retire from the international game, the Sunderland man was handed the captaincy for the 1-0 win in Prague over the Czech Republic nine days ago.

“It was amazing to captain a massive country like that, to have the eyes on me for that was special,” said Altidore. “Football is massive in the United States, the problem is that the fans just didn’t have anything to get excited about before.

“Now, when we play good football, like the things we did at the World Cup, more people were attracted by it. I am not the skipper full-time, he will name that soon, but just to be in and around that is an honour.”

Klinsmann’s achievements in charge of the USA have taken the sport over there to a new level and Altidore thinks that ‘soccer’ is about to really take off across the Atlantic, knowing how the United States Soccer Federation has successfully made the changes required to improve things.

“It’s ten times better these days; it is easier for young players now than it was for me,” said Altidore. “They can go abroad ten times easier than they could before. There are academies now where they can start to play from six years old; I didn’t start to play seriously until I was 14 or 15 because there were no academies in the States. That’s huge.

“In England you’d be picked up at five or six. It will be interesting to see what the next cycle brings and what success the team has. The Superbowl is still king in the States, but there were more viewers watched the World Cup games than most other things, like the NBA.”

He added: “It’s had a massive impact. America is a big country, just to be main stream media, mainstream stars, along with the other sport stars was unbelievable during the summer. It was all about how we did in Brazil. It was front page news in the New York Post, the New York Times.

“It was all about us. It was incredible because everyone was captivated by the team. When we landed back in the States I had never seen anything like it. It was unbelievable, it was a joke! I got a taste of it and now I want it to be like that all of the time. To make that happen you need to be successful. It’s not that far away.”

Klinsmann has shown over the last 13 months that he will remain loyal to Altidore regardless of his Sunderland form. The striker from New Jersey, however, will not be content with that and has every intention to make a name for himself in the North-East – and not just as a cult hero.

“Everyone is desperate to do well here, it’s about me dealing with pressure and everyone else doing the same,” he said. “For everybody, whatever happened last season is over. It’s a new season now. It’s the same for everybody. Even those who did well, yeah it was great but it’s a new season. I feel like it’s a clean slate.”

After missing out on pre-season because of the hamstring problem he suffered at the World Cup, Altidore went through his own ‘mini-hell’ training routine to build up his fitness. He has emerged from the bench in the latter stages of all of Sunderland’s opening three games, but Sunderland are still to win their first league game ahead of today’s visit of Tottenham.

How close is he to starting? “I don’t know. It’s up for grabs, yeah, but I am not the guy who is going to wish bad on my team-mates. I like Fletch and Connor a lot, so I want them to do well, especially Fletch because he had a tough time last season,” he said.

“It’s about being proactive and trying to make a nuisance of yourself. It’s a one striker system, a lot of teams use it now, so you need the No 10 in that system to have a great understanding with the striker and that is a position we have changed a lot. It’s a marathon not a sprint and hopefully the formation will come good and we will score the goals.

“It’s difficult to get in. You saw how well the team played last year, but we need to get that again. You need to get to a stage where you can take players in and out, swap them over, but you know the same end goal will be the same.”