Source: PA
Bruce targets top-10 finish
Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has challenged his players to repeat what they have just achieved and set up a grandstand finish to the season.
The Black Cats took their tally to 23 points from 16 Barclays Premier League games with a 1-0 home win over West Ham to leave themselves in seventh place in the table, the position in which they finished in successive campaigns under former boss Peter Reid a decade ago.
Bruce is now looking for a similar return from the next 16 games to give the club the best possible chance of claiming a top-10 finish for the first time since they returned to the top flight four years ago.
He said: "Nothing has changed since I came here 18 months ago. We are seventh going into the Christmas period.
"I have always said, we have got to stop being a yo-yo club - that was my immediate aim - and if we can get ourselves into the top 10...
"Our immediate aim is to go and mirror what we have just done, take 20-odd points from the next 16 games, and that would set us up very nicely for what should be a nice spring."
