Lee Cattermole did his growing up in public and quite a bit of it proved intensely painful viewing. There was the three-year ban from every pub in Stockton-on-Tees, the night out in Newcastle with Nicklas Bendtner resulting in a police caution and, lest we forget, the eight red cards.
A prosecution barrister presenting the case for Roy Hodgson to continue ignoring the Sunderland midfielder’s on-pitch charms could choose from an array of damning indictments. The only problem would be glossing over the inconvenient truth that the indiscretions are historical and Cattermole really is a changed man.
If it might be stretching things slightly to say the past is now a foreign country to one of this season’s outstanding Premier League performers, the pub ban came six years ago, the Bendtner jolly took place in 2011 and the last red card was issued 13 months ago.
“I’ve matured,” says Cattermole. “I’m 26 now and things are different.” A player eager to show England’s coach what he could do with three lions on his shirt cites his choice of holiday destinations as a case in point. Where once he might have headed to Las Vegas, Sunderland’s midfield anchor spent a recent break in Iceland relaxing in the geothermal waters of the Blue Lagoon lava field spa. Hodgson would probably enjoy discussing the elemental landscape with him.
More importantly, the sense that Gus Poyet’s enforcer is continually one rash challenge away from eruption is diminishing, with part of the credit due, ironically, to the Uruguayan’s predecessor.
Paolo Di Canio’s brief Wearside tenure served as shock therapy for a player who had become accustomed to being integral to the plans of first Steve McClaren at Middlesbrough, then Steve Bruce at both Wigan and Sunderland and later Martin O’Neill. Di Canio, though, had no hesitation about depositing Cattermole in the Wearside deep freeze, exiling him to train with the youth team.
It hurt but, rather than lash out, the club’s former captain kept his own counsel and gave serious thought to the Italian’s fitness blueprint. The aftermath of major knee surgery allied to a history of back trouble had reminded Cattermole he was no longer the dynamic 17-year-old who shone in the Stadio Olimpico – “the new Steven Gerrard,” enthused the Italian media, a little fancifully – as Middlesbrough beat Roma en route to the 2006 Uefa Cup final.
“I now spend more time in the gym than I did when I was a bit more, er, old school,” he says. “I didn’t really get involved in core work before but I understand fitness a lot better now.”
He also engages his brain these days. The dawning realisation that those who live by the sword tend to die by it, and that his knees could not be expected to survive too many more seasons of reckless challenges, coincided with Poyet’s appointment as Di Canio’s successor.
The former Brighton manager’s hallmark 4-1-4-1 formation also helped. Whereas Cattermole – whose passing is much better than many critics imagine – had previously charged all over the place, he now shields Sunderland’s defence and tempo setting from deep in midfield.
Adhering to Poyet’s instructions to stay on his feet wherever possible, he goes to ground far less than in the past and is perfecting the art of the subtle interception rather than the swashbuckling lunge.
Along the way Cattermole has become so reliable that not only did he eclipse Cesc Fàbregas during the course of an imperious display as Sunderland held Chelsea to a goalless draw last Saturday but, in statistical terms at least, he can count himself among Europe’s most effective defensive midfielders.
Indeed the case for an England call-up seems compelling for a former Under-21 international credited with making more recoveries, blocks and clearances than Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets, Blaise Matuidi and Daniele De Rossi this season.
Considering Sunderland tend to enjoy somewhat less possession than Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Roma, you would expect Cattermole to be busier than that illustrious quartet but Poyet’s general shift away from O’Neill’s counterattacking tactics has undeniably imbued him with increased control.
Not that Sunderland’s manager was initially sold on a character sufficiently single-minded to defy convention and continue wearing “old-fashioned” black boots. In January Liam Bridcutt, a big Poyet favourite, arrived from Brighton, ostensibly to replace him and Cattermole found himself temporarily sidelined.
It was no fluke that his return coincided with the team’s great escape from relegation last spring or that last Sunday he became the north-east football writers’ player of the year.
Poyet, who describes resisting Stoke’s £5m bid for Cattermole 11 months ago as his best piece of business at the Stadium of Light, could not have been more delighted. “I was told Lee was impossible to control and that he couldn’t play football; I thought he might get a gun and try to shoot me,” said Sunderland’s manager, well aware the dressing room leader sometimes known as “Clattermole” had played a key part in Di Canio’s ultimate downfall. “But then I sat down and talked to Lee and realised it’s dangerous to have preconceptions about someone you haven’t worked with.
“Lee’s an outstanding footballer who knows how to pass the ball. He definitely has more to his game than tackling and defending. He’s a more complete midfielder than people think.”
