Kieran Richardson

KIERAN Richardson will wear his “tin hat” at the Britannia Stadium today, but the Sunderland player takes comfort from the fact his team-mates are men he would happily be alongside in the trenches.

Today’s hosts, Stoke City, are the Premier League’s most notorious team when it comes to route one football. Steve Bruce was joking yesterday when he claimed “you have to be 6ft 2in to play for them”, but he was not far wrong.

Throw in a febrile crowd and up to six former Sunderland players, and the Black Cats are guaranteed an uncomfortable afternoon at a ground they have not won on since 2004. “It’s always one of the hardest games of the season,” Richardson acknowledges. “Every time we go there, we find it very difficult.

“They don’t really play football the way everyone expects the game to be played. That’s not their style, but they’re good at what they do and they stick to it because it works.”

Having begun his football education at West Ham United, enjoyed his first-team breakthrough at Manchester United and had a loan spell at West Bromwich Albion, one might expect Richardson’s footballing philosophy to be as pure as the driven snow. Not so.

“I don’t blame them for playing the way they do because they make it exceptionally hard for anyone to play against,” he says. “We’ll have to go there with our tin hats on and be prepared for whatever they throw at us. We’ll have to match them physically, but I’m confident we have the players to do that.”

Sulley Muntari and Asamoah Gyan are set to play together in a third different team, and Sunderland’s record signing is rubbing his hands at the prospect.

“I am very happy Sulley is here,” says Gyan. “I have played with him for Ghana and at Udinese, so I have known him for a long time. He is a good friend of mine.”