Sunderland manager Chris Coleman has described tonight’s clash with Bolton Wanderers as our ‘game of the season’ and he’s demanding the players rise to the challenge.
With Sunderland sitting four points behind Bolton Wanderers in the Championship table, this fixture could be huge when it comes to determining the final make up of the bottom of the table come the end of the campaign and with a number of positives to take from our fightback against Bristol City, it was very much a case of ‘back to how we were’ in the weekend’s defeat to Brentford.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met with the media this week to preview the game, Coleman was playing the result up as opposed to taking the pressure off.
It is now or never in his mind when it comes to survival.
‘The teams in and around us aren`t going to keep losing also and someone`s going to win and pull away. Is it going to be us, it can be if we want it to be. We just need to need it, not hope and wish, we need to go and make it happen.’
The Welshman went on to say.
‘There is a lack of cohesion and confidence, there are nerves. It’s not the time of the season to have that problem and we can’t afford that – Tuesday’s game is the game of the season for us and it’ll be a big test. There is no place for shrinking violets and if you can’t cope, don’t pretend you can. It’s only the strong who give you chance of fighting when you’re in the position we’re in. I still believe in the lads and we need to keep trying, and keep them fired up.’
Crystal Palace loanee Jonny Williams was also in front of the press, and the message from him was believe in themselves and play with more freedom and confidence as he was adamant the group had enough quality, we’re just not showing it.
‘We need to play with more freedom and belief in ourselves. It is a massive game, they`ll be looking at it as a winnable game just as we will be. The main thing is that we have a good start and give ourselves a chance of winning the game.’
Williams went on to repeat that the start was key given how we keep giving ourselves mountains to climb.
‘We leave ourselves with a mountain to climb by going one, two goals down, and that`s when we start to play rather than putting the other team on the back foot straight away. It comes down to confidence and belief and we need to find that quickly, we know we can beat Bolton and we should have done earlier in the season. We don`t want to get deep in the relegation zone and to where we`re winning games but we can`t get out, so we need to win.’
