Chris Coleman is out to silence Sunderland’s critics ahead of Saturday’s Wear-Tees match-up at the Stadium of Light.
The Black Cats dropped to the foot of the Sky Bet Championship table on Tuesday evening following a 1-0 defeat at Macron Stadium, as a suspect strike handed Bolton a valuable three points,
Two of the Lads’ last six games at the Stadium of Light have ended in victory, but Coleman admits there’s work to be done when it comes to being comfortable on Wearside.
However, the boss isn’t thinking about what’s happened and what everyone else is saying, and he’s urged his players to silence their critics with a strong end to the season.
“People still see us a scalp, they want us to fail, so let’s get that amazing feeling when you shut people up because you’ve got the results when everyone has written you off.
“If we get that mentality, I think we’ll pick up wins, but we need to keep going like we did on Tuesday.”
He continued: “If we can just climb out of that bottom three, it will give everybody such a huge boost.
“We have to have the mentality that everyone hates us, we’re not Sunderland with its big history and 40,000 people behind us when everything is going well – we are where we are.
“Nobody likes us, nobody wants us to succeed, so let’s go against everybody.
“That will give us a fighting chance.”