Away-day Blues are getting to Steve Bruce

Oct 26 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

STEVE Bruce will spend the next two weeks mulling over a Plan B after Sunderland’s disappointing away form continued at the weekend, but there will be no sweeping changes for tomorrow’s League Cup tie at home to Aston Villa.

After drawing at Manchester United and beating Liverpool in their previous two games, the Black Cats were desperately disappointing in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Birmingham City, which extended a miserable sequence.

Sunderland have not beaten Premier League opposition outside of Wearside since the opening day of the season, and Bruce left the Midlands pondering a “different approach” at Tottenham Hotspur on November 1.

In the meantime comes two home games. Bruce rightly sees the League Cup as important to his club and, although Darren Bent will undergo treatment on a knock today, he sees little need to rest other first-teamers.

“We had a rest for the first hour of the Birmingham game,” he joked. “You can’t be tired after that. We’ll look at Tuesday and go again.”

Of his side’s away woes, he added: “It’s there for everybody to see. Against Burnley, Stoke and now Birmingham, we haven’t taken anything from the games.

“It’s those three games in particular where we haven’t got anywhere near the standards we’ve set ourselves.

“That’s the frustration for me and we’ll have to overcome that sooner rather than later. I’ll analyse it and maybe we need to have a different approach away from home in terms of personnel and formation.

“Five in midfield is an option, but I think the threat of the front two has been a big part of our team. At

the death, we created two really good chances which, arguably on another day, we would have taken.

“But that’s not going to mask the fact we weren’t at it at all. In the Premier League you can’t get away with that.