Sunderland Football Club News

• Nickname:Black Cats
• Founded:1879
• Manager:Martin O'Neill

• Ground:Stadium of light
• Capacity:48,353

Collins expects to beat drop

16 Apr 2009 - 12:08:47

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Sunderland defender Danny Collins remains confident that Ricky Sbragia's side have enough quality to stave off relegation to the Championship.

Despite losing at home to Manchester United last weekend, Collins was pleased with the Black Cats' display and believes they have the confidence to beat Hull City on Saturday.

He told the Sunderland Echo: "I felt we were a bit unlucky not to come away with a point (against Manchester United) in the end - the performance was a good one. It did feel as if we'd turned a corner a bit.

"If we'd played badly against Manchester United going into the Hull game then confidence would still be low, but we've got a bit of that back now and we need to take it into the next two fixtures.

"Perhaps if we'd caught them on a good day and they'd beaten us three or 4-0 then heads might be down and we'd be thinking 'Where are we going to get a result from?', but the lads are pretty positive after the weekend.

"There's no fear playing at home - I think we proved that. I think we had the supporters behind us against Manchester United - we had 45,000 getting behind us and, from the way we played, you could see there was no fear from us.

"Now we just need to replicate that against Hull, and make the Stadium of Light somewhere that other teams are fearful of playing again.

"We can put the pressure back on to them if we start well and with good support behind us. We could put them on the back foot, get one or two goals and go from there."