Fenerbahce's Jeremain Lens, has said that he wants to leave parent club Sunderland AFC for a permanent move to Turkey, claiming that he "no longer belongs" on Wearside.

A career that never really started

Optimism was high the previous summer, when former manager Dick Advocaat brought in Lens from Dynamo Kiev for around £8million. However the Dutchman failed to live up to expectations, managing just three goals in 24 games, and been pretty much frozen out of the squad by former manager Sam Allardyce.

He played two matches at the beginning of the season, before reuniting with former manager Advocaat on a season-long loan. The Dutchman has show sparks of his potential, with the recent free-kick against Manchester United in the Europa League, and the 28-year-old said that he wants to make his move to the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium a permanent one.

"I feel I no longer belong there," Lens told the Sunderland Echo."If Fenerbahce want me, I want to stay. "

The Dutchman admitted: "I am not happy at Sunderland."

Lens concluded: "I have friends within this (Fenerbahce) team, my relationships with my team-mates are excellent."

One for the manager

The Black Cats managed to relieve some of the pressure on themselves and the manager David Moyes on Saturday, as they collected their first three points of the Premier League season. Dan Gosling gave hosts AFC Bournemouth the lead, but goals from Victor Anichebe and Jermain Defoe secured the 2-1 victory, and the former Everton striker said that the win was for their manager.

"The manager has a lot of pressure on him even though it's not him going out to play," he told Sky Sports.

Anichebe then went on to praise his new boss, "He's a really good manager but he just needs time to put down what he wants us to do."

"There were signs of what we used to do back at Everton, we pressed, showed resilience and dug deep and that's the most important thing," the striker proclaimed.

"That's the foundation, and that's what we did. It's been coming."

Anichebe concluded: "So credit to the manager. We really pulled out a result for him and long may it continue."

Sunderland AFC will take on Hull City at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, November 19 with kick-off at 3pm BST.

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.