Sunderland's goalscoring hero Tom Flanagan admits he's easy straight back into domestic football following his stint with Northern Ireland last week. 

The centre-half featured for his national side in the defeat to Bulgaria which all but end Northern Ireland's hopes of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. 

He came straight back into the fold for Sunderland at the weekend and made the vital contribution scoring the matchwinner in the weekend's 2-1 win over Gillingham. 

He's transition from international to domestic football is down to the way Sunderland look after their players, accorinding to the 29-year-old.

"I feel definitely most comfortable here at Sunderland" said Flanagan.

"I have really really struggled this year coming back from international trips and coming straight back in and playing a game. 

"All the travelling with Covid protocols and things like that. The travelling has really dragged out. I’m lucky in a respect that I’m not going half way around the world like Bailey is.

"We’ll get caught again because of the quality of players we have got. I’m sure it’ll happen again in November but we’ll just keep proving points.

"It’s good with the manager being from the level above because he knows how to look after people and how to manage people when they are coming back because he has always had the international breaks. 

"In that respect it really helps and the recovery side of it is huge. The club have been brilliant with it. We’ve been getting the train down and the train back up and it’s just loads quicker.

"You can get back up, you can walk around. It is just better. The investment into that has been brilliant.

"It is good to be back with the boys and playing. When you go away for internationals people can be in different runs of form and stuff like that and it is difficult to get the team going and the cohesion but we have really got that here at the minute."

The Black Cats return to action tomorrow evening when they make the trip to Crewe Alexandra.