Sunderland's boss Steve Bruce delighted with his Albanian capture.

The Sunderland manager said: 'I knew he was captain of his country and you don’t captain Marseille and a club like that if you don’t have something about you.

'I knew Lorik would turn out to be a cult figure here and he’s proven to be that. You can’t take away his exuberance. He makes a genuine attempt to get the ball, it’s his nature. When you tackle as many times as he does, you’re going to get caught, but he doesn’t mean to do anything malicious.

'He just wants to try and tackle people and win the ball back. Ten years ago, that wouldn’t have been a yellow card but we knew about that when we were signing him and I’d rather have it than not. We’ll have to make sure we deal with it when the suspension comes.'