Cats urged to show talent

May 23 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

“We’ve conceded too many and not scored enough. Now we hope we can do it in the final game.”

Sbragia believes the Tottenham game, when Sunderland failed to see out a match they were winning, was the start of the spiral into relegation trouble.

“The Tottenham game annoyed me because I knew it was two vital points we had thrown away and it is difficult to get points from any team in this league, whatever people say,” he said.

“That was three valuable points we lost and we would not have been talking about relegation if we’d have won that game. That’s the annoying thing.

“Bolton was a good point, and I was really disappointed on Monday (at Portsmouth) because I thought we should have got something – we did create chances and at 1-0 we should have seen the game out. I suppose that is naivety or whatever.”

A tense sell-out crowd at the Stadium of Light awaits, but Sbragia believes that his Black Cats can get the supporters on their side. “We’ve got to get them behind us by doing it out on the pitch. We’ve got to give them a display and a win to keep us in the Premier League because they’ve been fantastic,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sbragia has urged Anton Ferdinand to put his Monday nightmare behind him. The defender miscontrolled the ball horribly in the run-up to Portsmouth’s second goal, but Sbragia says he must have belief that he can get over it.

“He’s got to get that out of his head straight away,” the Black Cats chief said. “He understands he’s made a terrible mistake. When you’re down there things don’t seem to go right for you. We all make mistakes in life.”