Steve Bruce: We're wary of Pompey

Feb 9 2010 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

STEVE Bruce has warned against the perils of underestimating crisis-hit Portsmouth - as he refuted suggestions tonight's clash will make or break Sunderland's season.

Pompey’s struggles on the pitch have almost become a secondary concern and with a winding-up order hanging over them in relation to an unpaid £7million tax bill, they could be just days away from becoming the first Premier League club to go out of business.

It is a scary prospect for the south coast club, walloped 5-0 at Manchester United having not scored for three games. But as Bruce points out, they have shown fighting spirit in recent weeks and were the better side when they knocked Sunderland out of the FA Cup three weeks ago.

Portsmouth’s problems put the Black Cats’ struggles in sharp perspective, but there is little doubt that Bruce could do with a win too after a worrying run of 11 without victory.

Although the Sunderland boss accepts it is an important game, he is wary of putting too much emphasis on one result when there is still so much of the season to run.

“Of course it’s a big game but it’s not a “must-win” or anything like that. It’d be lovely to win it, that’s for sure, but

there’s still 14 or 15 games to go after it. I watched the DVD of them against Fulham and they were excellent.

“They didn’t deserve to lose at all, they could have quite easily won it. They had enough chances to.

“Whatever problems they’ve got – and no one is denying they’ve got a stack of problems – they still have some good players who have played a lot of Premier League football.

“I know it’s chaos trying to work there but as we saw in the FA Cup they’re professional and they won’t give it up. They’ll think if they can get a result against us that’ll give them a chance.

“We know what to expect but we’ve got to go down there and be positive, and try to win the game.”

If Sunderland did yield a maximum points haul it would be the first win on their travels since the start of the season.

Bruce tried to shock his players into an improvement by changing their training routine yesterday – an afternoon session rather than a morning one – but admits they are finding life difficult away from Wearside.

“If you look and analyse the bottom ten, every one of them is struggling away from home,” the Black Cats boss said.

“No team has won more than two away from home. That’s why we’re all in the bottom ten teams – it’s very difficult to do in the Premier League. You try and change things around but it’s difficult for any team to go away from home. I had a conversation with Big Sam (Allardyce), we’re all in the same boat – we’re all thinking ‘What’s the difference?’

“I know if we go there and play like we did in the second half we’ve got a good chance of getting a result.”

Meanwhile, the club will send Jordan Henderson for a scan this week as he faces at least a month out of action.

“Jordan will have a scan on Thursday, we’re just going to let the swelling go down. His ankle is that big there’s no point in doing it now,” Bruce revealed.

“We hope that it’s just a twisted ankle in which case it would be four to six weeks. But that’s the best-case scenario.

“It sums up our season that he’s out. We had him playing very, very well and doing very well but that’s the way it’s been.”