Bent's belief in Black Cats unwavering

Feb 1 2010 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

Darren Bent continues to show why he is being talked about as a World Cup hopeful. He told chief sports writer Luke Edwards why he believes the Black Cats are the perfect club for him

“For one reason or another we’ve not played well over the last few months and we have let our standards slip. Maybe we are conceding too many silly goals and it’s cost us. That’s why we are where we are now.

“It is difficult to put your finger on precisely why it has happened and where it started. One week we were beating Arsenal and we were being talked about as this great team and suddenly it’s completely turned around and we’re getting beaten too easily.”

Sunderland’s major weakness has been at the back, although Bent feels it is important to remember this is a new-look Sunderland side with a new manager and big ambitions.

He added: “We’re conceding silly goals and we’re not defending well as a team. It’s hard to know why it has swung so far the other way, but we must keep positive and we’ll start to pick up results again. We’re a new-look team and you always get a new buzz when a new manager comes in and I think we had that at the start of the season. To be fair, we were playing really, really well.

“All we need is one good result and I think we’ll be firing again, but the longer this goes on the harder it is going to be to turn things around.

“The table doesn’t look too good at the moment but I’m still confident we can have a good end to the season. If we pick up one or two good results we’ll be back in the top ten and that was the aim at the start of the season.”