Scouting Report: Connor Wickham (Sunderland)

Name: Connor Wickham

Age: 19

Position: Striker

Club: Sunderland

My views:

Connor Wickham made his debut for Ipswich Town aged only 16 years and 11 days in a 3-1 defeat to Doncaster Rovers. This was the start of a promising career for a striker who has been around the english game for 3 years already and has gained a lot of experience.

In total, Wickham made 65 appearances for Ipswich and scored 13 goals and soon enough some of the established Premier League teams were beginning to have a look at young Connor as one of the brightest young English prospects around.

This interest developed into solid bidding and in June 2011, Sunderland completed the signing of Wickham for a fee of around £8million. This was a large sum of money for a player of his age and many questioned Sunderland for splashing such an amount on a still-developing, young talent.

Sunderland however insist that they have bought a future star in both the Premier League and at international level and with 25 appearances at a number of levels for England and 12 goals, Wickham certainly knows how to score a goal for England.

I believe Wickham has a very bright future ahead of him, Sunderland is the perfect club for Wickham to develop his game and gain the necessary experience that will allow him to blossom into a fine English talent. I suspect that it won’t be long before Wickham is getting a call up for an international friendly for England as Roy Hodgson will be keen to take a look at the young man to see where he will fit into future squads.

With the level of intelligence Wickham shows in and around the box, he has the ability to become a prolific striker and one that will really worry defenses up and down the country for years to come.