Collins takes heart from showing

Aug 18 2008 The Journal

DANNY Collins believes Sunderland’s best performance at the Stadium of Light since they returned to the Premier League a year ago will give them belief for the season.

But he admits the Black Cats need to become more ruthless in front of goal and in defence if they are to take points from any of the big four this season.

He marked his return to centre-back with a strong performance alongside an equally-assured Nyron Nosworthy, but despite snuffing out the threat of Liverpool’s £43m strikeforce of Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane for most of the game, Sunderland were punished by a moment of magic from the Spaniard.

It was disappointing – but the overall display left Collins upbeat.

“It’s probably the best we’ve played in a long time at the Stadium of Light,” he said. “I thought we could have gone in at half-time in front because we played some good stuff. Things changed after half-time when Alonso came on and started spraying the ball around. But I couldn’t see them scoring. We’d been up against arguably the best striker in the world and we’d hardly given him a touch. Then he went and scored, which is pretty annoying. Still, it was encouraging to start the season with a pretty good performance.

“It was a disappointing outcome but as the gaffer has told us we can take some positives out of the performance, even though the result didn’t go for us.”

Despite the performance, Collins was clear where the difference between the two teams was. “We had one or two half-chances but didn’t create any clear cut chances and they took their half- chance,” he said. Facing Torres, arguably the most deadly striker in the division, was another reminder of the quality with which Sunderland have to compete if they are to reach the top 10.

“There’s probably no striker better than Torres anywhere in the world,” he said. “He managed to turn and get a shot away and from our point of view we could have got the block in earlier.’’