After a long time watching from the sidelines due to his mid-November ankle injury, Lynden Gooch finally returned to the field on Sunday.

Gooch made his long-awaited return on Sunday for the Sunderland U-23s as they took on the Liverpool U-23s, featuring for 60 minutes in his first action since damaging his ankle ligaments in a development squad match in November. The U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder completed the scheduled test with no issues as he seeks to return to the Sunderland first team picture.

“It was really nice to get back out there and to get an hours work under my belt was great,” Gooch stated. “I felt good out there and I thought I got what I needed to get out of the game in terms of fitness and I made some good runs to help me get back in the swing of things.There was some good passing so I’m really happy to be back out there and playing football once again.”

While Gooch is taking his return cautiously, he anticipates being able to return to the team soon and looks forward to capturing some much-needed points for the relegation-threatened Sunderland.

“I need to make sure I recover now and we’ll see about Tuesday because that all depends on how I recover,” Gooch continued. “It was my first game in a while so that was the most important thing – hopefully we can start to get some more bodies back now. We want to get more points on the board and hopefully I can help the lads do that going forward now.”

Sunderland currently sit in relegation territory, dead last in the Premier League with just 15 points from 22 matches. The team sit three points from safety behind 17th-placed Swansea City, with Crystal Palace and Hull City each a point ahead.