Keane calls for consistency
30 Jan 2008 - 08:28:11
Sunderland boss Roy Keane wants his team to learn how to win ugly after climbing out of the drop zone with Tuesday's 2-0 victory over Birmingham City.
The Black Cats jumped up four places to 14th position in the table after the hard-fought win over their fellow strugglers.
Daryl Murphy and debutant Rade Prica scored the goals for the Wearsiders, but Keane refused to be carried away with their second win in the last three games.
"We have had to play extremely well to get anything out of games and we have played extremely well in a lot of games and not got anything," he said.
"Tonight it is nice for me to be interviewed and say, 'we didn't play particularly well, but we won 2-0', because that's what all decent teams do.
"If you watch certain games, particularly the top teams, they play a lot of games where they don't play particularly well.
"But let me tell you, they know how to win, and this team has got to learn how to win, and it was a good sign tonight.
"We didn't see that at Tottenham (last weekend), we didn't see that at Reading, we didn't see it at Blackburn when we had chances.
"You have got to learn how to win, and how you gain that experience and the habit is by winning when you don't play particularly well."
Referring to the goalscoring debut of new signing Prica, he added: "Fans always take to strikers who score. It's a very easy relationship.
"I was tempted to start Prica but I thought it would be unfair. We had to change it because of an injury to (Dwight) Yorke and he came on and did well and scored a goal.
"He took the goal very well, he anticipated it, he had that instinct and then he had the ability to finish it."