Kenwyne Jones can handle survival pressure

Apr 25 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

Kenwyne Jones has been through plenty over the last year but he remains relaxed ahead of a critical relegation tussle in the Black Country. Mark Douglas reports

SUNDERLAND’S league position may be a concern, but Kenwyne Jones will leave the worrying to others.

From a port town of Point Fortin in south west Trinidad that boasts temperatures that regularly push the mercury over the 30 degree mark, Jones has the kind of sunny disposition that can’t be dimmed by a relegation scrap.

Not that he isn’t determined or driven – just philosophical and realistic about being involved the kind of relegation scrap that Sunderland’s supporters hoped they had outgrown last summer.

At 6ft 2ins and with shoulders as broad as the River Wear, Jones can cope with the physical burden of leading Sunderland’s fight against the drop.

But he is mentally strong enough to cope too – with the expectation, his own dip in form and the twists and turns that will alter the Premier League campaign as it hits the final straight.

For the record, Sunderland have a four-point advantage over Tees rivals Middlesbrough in the final relegation slot – and victory over West Brom today should whittle away at fears their fate will be decided in the final few hours of the season.

Not that Jones, who says he hasn’t studied the league table or the remaining fixtures in any great detail, is any great fan of such leaps of logic.

For him, the priority is meeting the immediate challenge rather than coming to terms with the problems that may lie ahead – and that means beating West Brom rather than worrying how their rivals’ results might affect Sunderland’s chances of staying up.

“Do I look at the league table and the fixtures when I’m at home? No chance. No chance,” he chuckled. “There’s no point in doing that because you can never tell how a game’s going to go so you can only deal with it when it comes. The way I see it we have five more games this season and the first is West Brom and we have to try to take the maximum from that to help our quest for safety.

“You can never tell after West Brom we might need another win or two so we can only deal with Saturday’s game. It is a little bit disappointing that it’s got to this stage, but if you look at the league this year it’s pretty tight. What’s more disappointing for us is our position now given where we were earlier in the season but that’s how it’s gone and we have to deal with it.”