Jozy Altidore and the US men's national team are in Boston, Massachusetts training for upcoming friendlies against Ecuador in East Hartford, Connecticut (Oct. 10) and Honduras in Boca Raton, Florida (Oct. 14) so we were bound to hear about Jozy's current form - or lack there of - with Premier League side Sunderland.
What we weren't expecting was to hear him speak so bluntly about the possibility of leaving his club team as early as January.
In Wednesday's media session Altidore said that if his situation doesn't turn around by January that he'll be looking elsewhere for a new team.
Jozy Altidore on situation at Sunderland. "If it doesn’t turn around, in January then I’ll be looking to start elsewhere." #usmnt
— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) October 8, 2014
Jozy has one goal in 33 league appearances since joining the Sunderland in July of 2013 and has played a total of 57 minutes in the team's first seven PL games this season.With a ton of speculation already suggesting a move back to Major League Soccer for the USMNT forward, and more specifically a move to New York City FC, U.S. fans will now be keeping a much closer eye on him over the next few months.
NYCFC recently acquired the No.1 spot in MLS' Allocation Ranking, which is the mechanism used to decide the destination of "a U.S. national team player who signs with MLS after playing abroad, or a former MLS player who returns to the league after having gone to a club abroad for a transfer fee."
Having said that, Altidore would be a prime candidate for NYCFC head coach Jason Kreis to add before his team takes the field in March of 2015 for their inaugural season in MLS.
