Ming might be staying afterall

HOT property Simon Mignolet says he wants to be part of a successful Sunderland side next season.

The Belgian keeper has been linked with a host of top clubs in England and abroad on the back of a hugely impressive season for the Black Cats.

And head coach Paolo Di Canio could face a battle to keep hold of the 24-year-old, who was Sunderland fans’ overwhelming choice as Player of the Season.

But Mignolet, a £2m signing from St Truiden in 2010, is level headed enough to ignore all the transfer talk.

He has been happy at the Stadium of Light, where he is now established as the clear number one keeper.

And despite a miserable season for Sunderland he is hoping that the last campaign was just a blip and the club can come back much stronger next season and benefit from Paolo Di Canio’s fresh approach.

“As a footballer, you want to do well and want to win games and finish higher in the table than 17th,” admitted Mignolet.

“On that point, it was a disappointing season. But then again, there’s a reason for that and hopefully next year we can do a lot better.

“Of course, when a new manager comes in, there’s new things around and since he’s come in, all the games we’ve played – apart from the Aston Villa game – there were positives.

“So that’s good for the future.”

While Sunderland’s season was vastly disappointing – with the biggest plus point being that they escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth – Mignolet’s star rose as dramatically.

Consistent displays, clean sheets and some stunning saves saw him recognised as one of the best keepers in the Premier League.

But Mignolet insists that he – as well as his team-mates – must now look back on the last season and learn from mistakes made.

He said: “During the season, you don’t really think about how things are going because you still have a lot to fight for, even if that’s avoiding relegation.

“You’re focused on that – not what your hopes were in the past. So during the season, we were always looking ahead.

“But now the season is over, you can make a judgement on how well we’ve played and how bad we’ve played.

“Now is a time to look back over the season and for everyone to look in the mirror to see what they can do better for next season.”

Although Mignolet is free of club duties for the moment, he still has international commitments and could well be involved tonight when Belgium play a friendly against the USA in Cleveland, Ohio, before facing Serbia in a World Cup qualifier in Brussels a week on Friday.

 

Yipeee

 

hope so ,get mignolet to sign another contract and it could be our best piece of business?

 

http://m.sunderlandecho.com/sport/s...eyes-a-bright-future-for-sunderland-1-5718281

 

So hes definately gone then.

 

Aye , just trying to get us a few more quid on the transfer fee by playing hard to get

 

To be fair both him and his agent have alway said one day he may move on, but for the moment he's staying put. I don't blame him, He's playing at a club where he sees lots of the ball. Who's going to develop better? Mig behind our defence? Or De Gea behind United's world class defence?

De Gea best keeper of the season. Bollocks! fix that was.

 

Couldn't agree more Bri. I was shocked when De Gea was selected, because the seasons stats for PL goalkeepers show that he didn't even come in the top three! The Man Utd influence strikes again.

 

Top 3 keepers for me were

Mig
Begović
Jussi

De Gea improved massively from last season but last season he was just awful. Was a fix all day long

 

They are reporting this story on the sky sports web page with the headline "Mignolet prepared to stay" as though it is under sufferance - then when you click on the link he is "set to reject the chance to leave Sunderland" what a bunch of word manipulating tossers