Bruce Hints At January Activity

Sunderland find themselves in another similar position to last year, same amount of points, same run of bad injuries and away day blues.

Steve Bruce is aware that his team needs to bounce back from this latest set back and maybe move for some back up in defence.

Losing both Bramble and Turner was blatently obvious in our loss on Saturday and the manager will assess things in January when he can make some transfer moves.

Bruce said: ‘We’ll have to see because the two lads have done remarkably well and we’ll have to see what they’re like when the transfer window resumes again,’ Bruce told The Journal. ‘We’ll just have to manage without them.

‘It isn’t a coincidence we lose with goals like that and they’re missing. That was the reason why we were hindered last year and why in the summer we did something about it.

‘We brought in a new goalkeeper (Simon Mignolet), (Nedum) Onuoha, Bramble, and all of a sudden we were a different kettle of fish.

‘We have to defend better. That is the reason behind our success this season and why we have been where we are. We have been rock solid but (on Saturday) we have given individual errors away.

‘It was a tough winter last year and we’re going to be reminded of it but I’m confident we can bounce back and defend better than we did at Wolves.’