CRAIG GORDON has hailed the support Steve Bruce gave him while he recovered from a thigh injury but revealed that he has not been given any assurances that he is Sunderland’s number one goalkeeper.

Tellingly, the £9m signing from Hearts has not sought any guarantee from the manager that he is regarded as the club’s first choice, preferring instead to influence Bruce’s team selection through his performances.

With Marton Fulop edging back to fitness and Trevor Carson earning impressive reviews for his reserve team performances, Gordon accepts he faces an on-going battle to retain the jersey.

“Everybody wants to be in the position of being the defined first choice,’’ he reflected.

“That’s the position you want to be in, of course, but that’s not the case here so we’ll do the best we can week in, week out.

“The manager hasn’t said I’m number one and there’s a reason for it. You have to perform on the pitch.

“Marton’s waiting in the wings, having come back from his injury. If I’m not doing it on the pitch, he’s every reason to change things. I don’t think there’s any need to say I’m number one.

“I don’t feel the need to be told that, I just want to go out there and play as many games as I can. I have that self-belief and I’m sure Marton has it as well.”

His latest challenge is to deny Hammers’ marksman Carlton Cole this afternoon but admits that he found it hugely frustrating when the niggling injury delayed him a chance to impress the Sunderland boss.

But after returning to the side in the Carling Cup victory at Norwich City, Gordon has been an ever-present in Bruce’s team.

“I’m in the team at the moment, hopefully I’ll stay in it,’’ he said. “It’s a difficult situation really, having two people who are desperate to play in the first team and feel they have earned the right and should be doing that.”

Asked if he had considered leaving Wearside while he was sidelined, he replied: “Not really.

All I had to concentrate on was getting myself ready to play. If things continued after that maybe I’d have had to think about it but it wasn’t anything that had crossed my mind at that point.

“I just wanted to get fit and get back to playing my best football, then you start to see what happens after that. Coming back towards the end of last season, then having the operation in the summer, there wasn’t ever a time when I thought everything was in working order and I could step out on the training field and stake a claim for a place.

“This season it took a while, longer than I thought it would.

“I got the operation with three weeks to go of last season and hoped I’d be back for pre-season. Missing pre-season isn’t ideal for any player, goalkeepers included.

“The manager was really good actually. He just wanted to see me play. I went away with the team on the pre-season tours to Portugal and to Holland and didn’t play at all.

“I barely trained at all, it was on my own, very lightly. It really was slow progress. It was frustrating for him as well. He wanted to be able to assess the whole squad and wanted to see me play to make the decisions he needed to make. It’s very pleasing to get back in and now I’m starting to feel very comfortable.”