Black Cats won't panic, says Steve Bruce
Jan 18 2010 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
STEVE Bruce has promised there will be no knee-jerk reaction to Saturday's 7-2 humiliation at Chelsea - and definitely no bid for Liverpool winger Ryan Babel.
Flattering though it was to Sunderland, the Stamford Bridge scoreline highlighted their desperate need for reinforcements – particularly defensively.
The Black Cats are closing in on their first signing of 2010, expected to be Hamburg’s Ivory Coast right-back Guy Demel – but Bruce was adamant neither the nature nor the scale of defeat would affect his plans for the January transfer window.
“The one thing I’m not going to do is panic over a hiding from Chelsea,” he said. “They can do that to a lot of teams. If there’s anyone available, we’ll have a look at it. We’re close on one, but I can’t envisage me being ultra-busy, that’s for sure.” Rumours of a swap involving forwards Kenwyne Jones and Babel has long been mooted.
But Bruce dismissed the prospect of that, or a separate bid for the Dutchman.
“I keep hearing this and seeing this and you guys have got your jobs to do,” he told the media. “You’ve got a right to speculate but where that comes from, I do not know.
“I’m trying to build a squad to improve and the last thing I want to do is trading or anything like that. It’s simply not true.”
Bruce was scathing about his team and their “inept” defending, but remained confident Sunderland will be able to look back on the 2009-10 season with pride.
That the campaign has taken a downturn is because of a run of eight Premier League games without a win which has coincided with a spate of injuries to key players. “We were going well (at the start of the season), then we lost the goalkeeper (Craig Gordon) with a broken arm, and (Lee) Cattermole, (Michael) Turner got suspended for four games,” Bruce said.
“I don’t want to make excuses. We’ll be okay, once we get them back fit and marching again, especially defensively.
“To be without eight to ten players, we found it very difficult to cope with. I’m still quietly confident we can have a decent season, even though we’ve had our backsides kicked.”
