Sunderland's David Vaughan keen to avoid injury-hit season

Sunderland midfielder David Vaughan is keen to avoid the injury problems that affected his debut campaign at the Stadium of Light.

Damaged ankle ligaments and two hernia operations limited the 29-year-old Wales international to just 20 first-team starts last season.

"I had a few injuries that hampered my season and interrupted the flow," Vaughan told BBC Newcastle.

"Hopefully I can keep injury free and keep a place in the team."

Vaughan returned to the Black Cats fold with a first start of the season in the reserves' 2-2 draw with Newcastle on Tuesday.

"We had some good chances, their goalkeeper has made a couple of saves and we had some poor finishing," said Vaughan.

"But it was a good job it was a reserve game and we can learn from our mistakes.

"On the balance of the game, we felt we could have won it and we had quite a few chances in the second half but 2-2 was probably a fair result."

Reporting by BBC Newcastle's Steve Mundy.