Calm Quinn won’t panic over form dip

Nov 15 2008 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

NIALL Quinn has reiterated the Sunderland board’s confidence in Roy Keane, insisting there is no sense of panic about the team’s run of four successive defeats.

Since the brief adrenaline rush of the club’s first Wear-Tyne derby win for 28 years, the Black Cats’ form has flat-lined, culminating in Wednesday’s drab defeat by Blackburn in the Carling Cup and the first serious questions emerging about Keane’s stewardship.

The sense of unease was heightened yesterday amid a flurry of unsubstantiated rumours that claimed variously that Keane had left Sunderland and failed to travel with the squad to the north west for this afternoon’s game at Ewood Park. They were wholly without foundation and Keane will take to the Black Cats’ dug-out, but it is a further signal that these are the most testing days of his so far stellar managerial career.

Having been provided with a sizeable budget to take Sunderland beyond the cycle of promotion and relegation from the Premier League that has blighted their recent history, Keane was expected to lead the Black Cats towards mid-table safety this term.

That is yet to happen, adding pressure ahead of this afternoon’s crucial encounter with similarly inconsistent Blackburn Rovers. And, while there is undoubtedly a

sense of unease at occupying a spot in the bottom three of the Premier League, Quinn insists that it will not blow the Black Cats off course.

“We’ll take the knock-backs because we’ve always known they’d be waiting for us and we will look to respond with determination,” said Sunderland’s chairman.

“Everyone here is fully committed to what we are trying to achieve and, despite some of the wind being taken out of our sails by recent results, we can see a lot of positives – starting with that first-half performance last Saturday (against Portsmouth).”

It has been a remarkable turnaround in fortunes since the Newcastle victory, but Quinn is keen to apply some perspective to the slump. Sunderland’s nosedive into the relegation places has been alarming, but a cursory glance at the top-flight table illustrates just how tight the division is. A win against Paul Ince’s men today could theoretically take Sunderland as high as tenth.

That is the cause for some of Quinn’s optimism. “The table is so tight that we’ve seen teams springing up seven or eight places or dropping back half a dozen on the back of a result. If we can string a couple of results together it can make a massive difference,” he said.

“It was on Sunday when reality hit home about how many places we had sunk as a result of the defeat. I can’t remember ever moving so many places after a single result at this stage of the season.” Quinn’s call for calm will be aided by victory at Blackburn, where Kenwyne Jones is set to make only his second Premier League start of the season, alongside Djibril Cissé in attack.

Although he is not yet fully match fit, Keane believes that his Trinidad & Tobago international is ready for a run of successive games in the team after playing the first 80 minutes of his team’s game in midweek.

“We hope so. It is a balancing act. I was tempted to leave him on (against Blackburn in midweek) – you think, if we get it back to 2-2, you are looking at extra time,” he said.

“But he has only just come back a couple of weeks ago from a serious injury, so we have got to get the balance right.

“He gives me a headache because when he came on against Stoke, he did ever so well and last night, he led the line well, he was a handful for defenders and he scored.”