New signing Jewison Bennette is ready for a 'new challenge' after crossing the Atlantic to join Sunderland. The Costa Rica international's arrival from CS Herediano for an undisclosed fee was confirmed on Thursday, and he signed a four-year deal with the club holding an option to extend his stay by a further 12 months.
And Bennette is looking forward to getting to work. "I'm very happy and I'm looking forward to taking on this new challenge," said the 18-year-old winger.
"I've come here with the aim of helping the team as much as I can, and hopefully soon we can make a push to get up to the Premier League. That's what you work hard for and train for every day, to put the team in a position where we can keep growing and achieve our objectives."
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He added: "I'm very grateful to the fans and everyone for their support so far - I'm going to give them my all. I would describe myself as an agile, skilful, fast player who likes to take people on."
Bennette has already seen the Stadium of Light and is keen to experience a matchday with a crowd approachhing 40,000. He said: "I'm really excited about it.
"When you see a stadium like this and a huge fanbase it gives you even more motivation and desire to work hard day-to-day and give your all in training and in matches."
Bennette was welcomed to the club on social media by former Sunderland defender and current Costa Rica teammate Bryan Oviedo. Bennette knew about Sunderland from the Netflix show Sunderland 'Til I Die, but the youngster is looking forward to talking to Ovideo in more detail about the club during the next international meet-up.
He said: "I was really happy when they [Herediano] told me about the interest from the club. I already knew it was a historic club and when I saw the Netflix series I liked it so I was really excited and up for it.
"I haven't had the chance to talk to him [Oviedo] because we are outside the international break, but I hope that I'll be called up to the national team again and we can talk about it then. But I've seen what he has said, how this is a big club and a great place to develop."
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