Not too long ago, Darren Bent closed the door to his Gateshead apartment, clambered into his car and drove south. He pulled off the A1 where the Angel of the North spreads its rusty wings above the motorway and stood beneath it, marvelling at the scale of a “pretty cool” sculpture that Antony Gormley designed to invoke a “sense of embrace”. It is a concept that Bent appreciates.

Ten games into his Sunderland career and the leading English scorer in the Barclays Premier League, Bent’s yearning for a sense of embrace has been slaked.

“I’m in such a good place,” he said. “I’m coming into training excited. I feel confident. Happy.” When he looks in the mirror, he does not see a stranger staring back.

There have been moments of deflation over the past two years, but Bent has been energised by the challenge of relocating to the North East, feeling Sunderland seep into his bloodstream and, in the process, rediscovering himself. The goals — eight of them — have been frequent and the team, while inconsistent, have drawn away to Manchester United and beaten Liverpool, beach ball and all.

“I like to watch my performances back, to see how I’ve done and what I could do better,” he said. “My dad said the other day, ‘Look at some old stuff and then look at yourself now.’ I didn’t realise it then, but last season I wasn’t smiling, there wasn’t the same workrate. I was a completely different person. I wasn’t me. There was somebody there, but not me.”

There is no bitterness about his two years at Tottenham Hotspur — regrets are not the 25-year-old’s — but his transfer to Sunderland for a club-record £10 million has lifted mist from his life. He feels fundamental to Steve Bruce, the manager. Embraced.

In turn, through his play, his attitude and his infamous, engaging Twitter page (which details his love of computer games, basketball and Weetabix), he has reached out to a fanbase who have rarely felt such affection.

“When I got here, I was given a stack of DVDs to welcome me to the club and I watched them all,” he said. “I really got into the whole Sunderland way. I met Jimmy Montgomery and that was a big deal. It was the same when Kevin Phillips came back with Birmingham City. He said, ‘Work as hard as you can, score goals and they’ll love you.’ Those words echo in my head every time I run out.

“Before the Liverpool game, the players were saying how different it felt. It was the biggest home crowd I’ve ever played in front of and we wanted to show all those people what we’re about. You could feel the weight of that history, the passion. That all of your ambitions can be fulfilled.”

Today Sunderland host West Ham United, the club whose courtship he parried in favour of Spurs in the summer of 2007. Next weekend his first return to White Hart Lane beckons. He has no appetite to revisit the barbs he took from Harry Redknapp or dwell on the difficulties he experienced after his £16.5 million move from Charlton Athletic, but the episode hardened him.

“There’s an extra drive for me because of the criticism I received and I use it as an incentive to prove people wrong, to show that I’m a good player,” Bent said. “People have taken to me so well at Sunderland and that really helps you settle. Even before I arrived at Tottenham, there was talk about the price-tag and it felt like people weren’t quite behind me.

“With Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe there, it was like running uphill against Usain Bolt. When Harry came in, I think I got seven goals in his first five games, but I went a couple of matches without scoring and that was it.

“I’ve had to grow up massively. When people level so much stuff at you, you can curl up and die, but I thought to myself, ‘No, I’m going to use this as an incentive.’ It’s worked. I’m loving life. It’s all about football up here and I needed that.”

England still itches. Bent has not played for his country since a substitute appearance against Germany last November, but Fabio Capello has watched him and his form warrants recognition. “All I can do is keep going, keep helping Sunderland win,” he said. “The moment I stop doing all that I can forget it.”

His omission from the last World Cup squad after scoring 22 goals for Charlton was another source of anguish, but Bent can almost laugh about it now. “When Sven-Göran Eriksson phoned me to say I wasn’t going, it was shattering, but I’ve tried to come back stronger,” he said. “And somebody told me Sven has put me in his fantasy team this year.”

He has leant on his family, “the rocks behind me”, and grasped responsibility. He is proud to be Sunderland’s figurehead for the Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football campaign and proud, too, that the game has evolved since his early years at Ipswich Town, when a Millwall supporter called him a “black bastard”. He scored that day; he tends to.

He sports a series of tattoos in honour of Veda, his grandmother. “She prays for me,” he said, “and I wanted a religious theme on my arm. I’ve got Mary, the gates of Heaven. Two hands in prayer and a bible, because grandma reads from it all the time.”

The conversation had returned to angels. Like Bent and Sunderland, it felt right; like Gormley’s structure, he is spreading his wings.

• Darren Bent is an ambassador for Kick It Out, football’s equality and inclusion campaign.