"We had high hopes for Jordan coming into this season. He had a couple of impressive cameos last season away at Manchester United and away at West Ham United, that made you think there’s certainly a future for the lad at the club.
He also enjoyed a spell away at Walsall, and upon his return (prior to those cameos) he came back looking fitter, stronger and like he’d “filled out” a bit. It was eerily reminiscent of when Jordan Henderson went away to Coventry on loan, leaving Wearside as a wispy but talented player, and came back a man.
So all in all, it was a little surprising he wasn’t given a token spot on the bench at times, especially under Bruce who had blooded him in the first place - not even in the Carling Cup did he get any action.
Forgive our ignorance, but wedon’t know that much about Carlisle United, or their playing style, but Cook is easily most suited to being a wide striker in a 4-3-3 or attacking 4-5-1 (Ed – our style as it is). He cuts inside well, isn’t afraid to take a shot and has a trick or two up his sleeve. Despite being two-footed, his preference is to cut in onto his right foot from the left hand side.
Personally, he seems very level-headed, and we’ve never heard of him getting it trouble or causing problems in or around the team for any reason.
Undoubtedly a talented lad, but he has one major problem...
Since those loans however he’s become a little bit of a forgotten man. The position he plays isn’t one we really play, and with James McClean, Stephane Sessegnon, Sebastian Larsson and if push came to shove then Jack Colback or David Vaughan can be pushed out wide for a spell, his chances at Sunderland are going to be extremely limited moving forward.
We’ve a throng of talented youngsters at the club, all similarly to Cook in that their too old for the youth team, and too good for the reserves. Sadly, not good enough yet for the first team, so the loan makes perfect sense. Martin O’Neill seems to be sending all this group, including the likes of John Egan, Billy Knott, Louis Laing and of course Cook, out on loan for a month or two.
We’ll be interested to see how he gets on at Carlisle United, as this could be a great opportunity to put him back on the radar of the first team. If not however, it would be hard to see him getting much action back here. The hunger of having something to prove will hopefully drive him on."
All in all there sounds to be plenty of potential in Cook, then and it certainly appears that the CUFC powers that be have done their homework. The real talk, of course, will start at 5pm on Saturday afternoon - fingers crossed for a Cook brace to wow his new faithful!
