Landing targets is a real concern

Feb 28 2010 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

“You can’t do that in the Premier League.

“If I get X amount to spend in the summer, I will probably spend it on buying in one or two quality signings.

“Because the biggest thing that has happened to me since coming to Sunderland is that I have realised what kind of player is needed to play here, in front of this crowd, and deal with the expectation.

“To play here and be successful, you have to be a really, really good player – a top player. And they are expensive.

“If you go back to the most successful period Sunderland had in the Premier League, they had Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips. How much would they be now?

“If you’re talking about Crouch and Jermain Defoe at Spurs, Quinn and Phillips would be on a par with them.”

Bruce’s Sunderland made a great start to the season but that soon tailed off when his star names – such as goalkeeper Craig Gordon and his own signings Cattermole and Turner - picked up injuries and Sunderland embarked on a three-month, 13-league-game, winless streak.

He said: “There’s more pressure when you’ve got money to spend, certainly. I think I spent something like a net £15m in the summer and that’s more than I’ve ever had.

“And we’ve got good players for that money.

“When all of them are fit we are a decent team – when they’re not, then we find it difficult to cope.

“We have to be patient and keep on progressing. I knew when I took over last summer that it wouldn’t just happen overnight, even though we had a great first three months.

“I knew that if we lost a few of our big players it would be a problem, although I didn’t expect us to be in this much trouble!

“But I’m determined to see it through, and if we get one good result, I’m convinced we can win back-to-back games and turn things round.”