Wes Brown has insisted the men who got Sunderland into their early-season difficulties can get them out again after a welcome resurgence.
Brown clinched a second Barclays Premier League victory in three games for new manager Martin O'Neill with an 89th-minute winner at QPR on Wednesday evening to move the Black Cats three points clear of the drop zone.
They will now seek to build upon that as Everton and then leaders Manchester City head for the Stadium of Light over the holiday period, and Brown said: "We have always had it. The players haven't changed, we have always had it in the team. We managed to get that break on Wednesday night, and hopefully we can carry on from there and have a good Christmas period."
He added: "If you look at Everton at the moment, you could probably say they are not playing to their best ability as well, so we can go into the game confident.
"We are at home - that's all we can do. We got three points at QPR, which is the main reason we went there.
"If we had scraped three points, I still would have been happy with a 1-0, 5-4.
"It doesn't really matter, we got the three points, and now we can take it into the next game."
Source: PA
