MICHAEL TURNER feels he is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel after an injury-plagued year.

The Sunderland defender has enjoyed his first real run of games for the Black Cats almost 12 months on from suffering knee ligament damage during the 2-2 draw with Everton.

Although Turner returned from that injury – suffered when he collided with a goalpost – at the end of last season, the comeback proved to be premature and the former Hull City centre-half missed the end of the campaign and a great deal of pre-season.

But, in the wake of Titus Bramble’s suspension from club duty two months ago, Turner has improved with every game and has forged a solid defensive partnership with Wes Brown.

His return to the side is a massive relief to the 28-year-old, who admitted he feared he may not play top-flight football again.

He said: “It’s been a bitterly frustrating time for me personally.

“It’s the first major injury I’ve had in my career and it’s been a massive learning curve for me too.

“Coming back when I did last year – if I look back – was probably too soon for me. In myself I felt I was ready but I probably wasn’t right.

“It takes time, you need to have patience and you need to keep working hard every day.

Then hopefully you get your rewards.

“I suppose at times I did sit there and wonder whether I was ever going to get back to the level that I was before.”

Turner returned to Sunderland’s starting line-up in April, thrown into the defence for the Black Cats’ 5-0 defeat to Manchester City, before his knee flared up again.

And while his recovery has been slow, Turner is confident that Sunderland fans will see the best of the player who Steve Bruce spent £4million on in August 2009.

He said: “I’ve played five games on the bounce now. I’m enjoying playing with the new lads and now it is all about showing the consistent form that got me a move to Sunderland.

“It’s again, slowly and slowly getting better for me. I want to keep putting on good performances.

“At this club there’s very good people around you. The lads are great day in-day out, the physios and coaching staff are always giving you gee ups.

“It’s important to have good people around you, it always keeps you mentally stable and on the right track.

“Now I just want to repay everyone for everything they’ve done for me.”

Turner has helped Sunderland to the fifth-best defensive record in the Premier League, and is aiming for more of the same with the visit of Fulham on Saturday, the first of a batch of four games – alongside Wigan Athletic, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers – that are winnable fixtures for Steve Bruce’s men.

And Turner said: “We’ve been going into every game hoping that will be the game we’ll hopefully kick on from.

Everyone is looking at these fixtures hoping we’ll win them all but they will be tough games.

“We need to conduct ourselves right but I think if we keep going the way we have been, we won’t go far wrong.

“We’ve got Fulham on Saturday.

We’ve got enough to win that, hopefully we’ll do that and then we can move on to the next game.

“We just need to put it all together now. We’ve bought players in over the summer, there’ve been changes and now is time for that to bear fruit.”

Meanwhile, confusion continued to reign over the condition of Connor Wickham.

The striker was stretchered off at Old Trafford on Saturday, November 5 with a suspected serious knee injury.

But while scans last week showed that the injury was not as bad as first feared, Sunderland confirmed last night that the former Ipswich forward will miss the next six weeks of action.

However, Fraizer Campbell may be close to a return to first-team action.

The striker tweeted yesterday: “Not long now tweeps should be back playing by xmas time!”

The former Manchester United man underwent surgery in April to repair knee ligament damage and an Achilles tendon, and while it was expected he would be out of action for 12 months, his return could be sooner than first thought.