Cats overcome fear of home fixtures
Apr 16 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal
Confidence has been boosted by the spirit shown in running Manchester United close last Saturday, with the Wearsiders producing a display in the 2-1 defeat which Collins believes saw the team “turn a corner” after a run of poor results and disappointing performances.
“I felt we were a bit unlucky not to come away with a point in the end – the performance was a good one. It did feel as if we turned a corner a bit,” the defender said.
“If we had played badly against Manchester United going into the Hull game then confidence is still low, but we’ve got a bit of that back now and we need to take it into the next two fixtures.
“Perhaps if we’d caught them on a good day and they’d beaten us three or four-nil then heads might be down and we’d be thinking ‘Where are we going to get a result from?’ but the lads are pretty positive after the weekend.
“There is no fear playing at home – I think we proved that. I think we had the supporters behind us against Manchester United – we had 45,000 getting behind us and from the way we played you could see there was no fear from us.
“Now we just need to replicate that against Hull, and make it somewhere that other teams are fearful of playing again.”
Fear will be the theme of the day on Saturday when Sunderland, without a win in eight matches, take on Hull, boasting a record of just one victory in 16. A confident start from Ricky Sbragia’s side could be the key, and Collins is looking for Sunderland’s forwards to apply the pressure from the kick off.
“They’re just coming off the back of a 3-1 defeat up at Middlesbrough so hopefully confidence is a little bit low. They’ve got some tough fixtures coming up,” he said.
“We can put the pressure back on to them if we start well and with good support behind us. We could put them on the back foot, get one or two goals and go from there.”
The Hull fixture kicks off a double header with potentially huge significance for Sunderland’s battle against relegation with a trip to bottom club West Brom following a week later. And Quinn is looking for more good support from the terraces. “I came away from the (Manchester United) game encouraged by the connection between the fans and the players and that was clearly evident,” Sunderland’s chairman said. “I slept soundly for the first time in a while on Saturday, confident that we have what we need coming up to the Hull game.”
Meanwhile, Tottenham have again been linked with a summer move for Kenwyne Jones, a player that Harry Redknapp made repeated attempts to sign in the January transfer window.
Redknapp is likely to come back with another offer – but Quinn believes keeping hold of Jones illustrates the club’s ambition.
