WHEN he sat down to assess his future this summer, Lee Cattermole found himself faced with a clear-cut choice of options. Move elsewhere, and spend the final seven or eight years of his career trying to put down new roots and embed himself into the fabric of a range of different clubs, or commit to a new long-term deal at Sunderland and focus on trying to become a part of Wearside footballing folklore.

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In the end, it didn’t take him long to make up his mind. A proud North-Easterner, who wears his heart on his sleeve both on and off the pitch, Cattermole has had enough of being the tearaway who was always chasing seemingly unachievable ambitions.

Enjoying the quiet life in his new home in rural Northumberland, the 27-year-old is relishing his role as the leader of a club that has got under his skin. He might have been born a Teessider, and a strong supporter of his hometown club Middlesbrough, but his six years on Wearside mean he now regards a different red-and-white shirt as his own.

“This feels like my club,” said Cattermole, who signed a new five-year deal at the start of last month. “If you spend enough time somewhere, you fall in love with it.

“This place has definitely got to me, and for the years I’m going to be here now, it’ll be a long period and it’ll play a big part in my life. I want to make sure when I leave that people still remember me, and that means helping the club achieve something really special.

“I don’t want to just plod out my career, spreading my time around five or six different clubs. I could have done that, but here I feel like I have a chance to be remembered and that was a massive thing.”

With John O’Shea’s first-team future looking increasingly uncertain, Cattermole is set to take over as Sunderland’s skipper for the forthcoming campaign.

His leadership role formed part of the discussions that led to him committing to a new deal this summer, but of more importance was the long-term vision that was outlined in talks with owner Ellis Short and managing director Lee Congerton.

Short’s pledge to support head coach Dick Advocaat in the transfer market has been honoured with the purchase of Jeremain Lens and Younes Kaboul, with the arrival of Yann M’Vila and Leroy Fer on loan deals further strengthening a squad that has found itself battling against relegation in each of the last three seasons.

The hope is that the forthcoming campaign will be different, and act as the foundation for a sustained improvement over the course of Cattermole’s new five-year deal.

The midfielder accepts the limitations that Sunderland will always have to battle against in a league as financially imbalanced as the Premier League, but he sees no reason why the Black Cats should not be competing with other supposedly less-fashionable clubs who have successfully established themselves in the top half of the table.

“In terms of the team, I think this is the best group of players now that I’ve ever been a part of here,” said Cattermole. “Over the next couple of seasons, we have to really try to make a name for ourselves.

“It was only two years ago that I lost my squad number (under Paolo Di Canio), but I can see that a lot has changed since then. You can’t make massive improvements overnight, but I believe in the structure of the club at the minute and where the people in charge want to go.

“We sat down before I signed and everything they were telling me was great. It’s a brilliant club with a massive fanbase, but we’re underachieving at the moment. We need to look to push on and get back to the kind of heights that the club enjoyed in the Peter Reid era.

“They finished seventh or eighth back then, and if you can finish in or around there, then that’s progress, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be competing with where Swansea, Stoke and Southampton are. You look at clubs like that, and that has to be the target for us. Throw in a decent cup run, and that’s where the club has to look to be.”

The task of making progress this season begins on Saturday when Sunderland kick off the new campaign with a trip to Leicester City.

Unlike in recent years, where the fixture computer has tended to throw up a challenging start, the opening four games of this campaign pit the Black Cats against Norwich, Swansea and Aston Villa as well as the Foxes.

For once, there is a strong chance of Sunderland starting on the front foot, and Cattermole accepts that the period before the first international break will be crucial in terms of setting the tone for the remainder of the season.

“We need to hit the ground running,” he said. “On paper, we have to look at the first three or four games and be really confident going into them.

“In previous years, we’ve always had one of the top four in the first couple of games, but that isn’t the case this time around. On paper, the start is there to go and attack, and that’s what we have to do. We have to start on the front foot and make sure we go into these opening games full of confidence. We’ll be looking to start the season well.”