Jermain Defoe believes the international break has come at the perfect time for Sunderland.
The Black Cats picked up their first point of the season on Saturday drawing 1-1 at Southampton, with a home game against Everton coming up on Monday 12 September when the Premier League resume.
Currently blighted by injuries, Sunderland will be hoping to see the likes of Billy Jones, John O’Shea and Jan Kirchhoff return following the two-week break, with a number of other players including Lee Cattermole also recovering from injury.
And Defoe, who has scored two goals in three games, is hoping the return of key players will give the Black Cats a timely boost.
““We’ve had a few injuries to key players who need to come back in, so hopefully the international break gives those players time to recover so that when we come back everyone is ready to go.
“If we continue to play the way we have with the same spirit and same mentality then then I think we will pick up a lot of points.”
He continued: “At Southampton it was a very similar story to last year; we were 1-0 up and working hard at a difficult place.
“We dug in and it can’t always be a pretty game so you have to concentrate from the first minute until the final whistle, but they got the equaliser and it was unlucky on Jordan [Pickford] because I thought he was brilliant.
“He was probably our best player with his decisions – his kicking was also unbelievable – and he made some brilliant saves, so it was unfortunate but we will take the point.”
