Premier League round-up: Sunderland can use bottom-three place as springboard to escape, says Lee Cattermole
Sunderland close the gap on Leicester City to just one point
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Midfielder Lee Cattermole will not allow himself to relax after Saturday’s 2-1 home victory over Southampton gave Sunderland a chance of pulling off another great escape from relegation.
Jordi Gomez’s two penalties provided the win which leaves Sunderland two points from a place outside the drop zone, heading into Saturday’s trip to Everton. But Cattermole said: “
has warned Sunderland they have done nothing yet despite giving themselves a chance of a second great escape.
The Black Cats, who dragged themselves out of Barclays Premier League relegation trouble against all the odds 12 months ago, set up the opportunity to repeat the feat with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Southampton at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
It was just the club’s second win in 11 attempts in the league, but while it left them only a point adrift of safety - although with an inferior goal difference to the two sides immediately above them, Leicester and Hull - they remain inside the bottom three and face a taxing run-in.
For that reason, midfielder Cattermole will allow no-one within the dressing room to let up as preparations start for next weekend’s difficult trip to Everton.
He said: “No chance. We are still in the bottom three. That could work in our favour, just seeing that all week. The results in the last two weeks have just shown the teams down there seem to produce performances.
“We have got to keep doing that and keep matching what everyone else is doing, just focusing on ourselves and setting ourselves a target and make sure we get there, and then look to push on.”
The outlook looks bleak for Burnley after their 1-0 defeat at West Ham, where Michael Duff was sent off for an offence which led to Mark Noble’s winning penalty. Burnley are now eight points adrift of safety and could be relegated at Hull this weekend. Matt Taylor said professionalism dictates that they will “continue to fight”, while conceding that their plight is “insists Burnley will continue to fight to remain in the Premier League despite the odds now being stacked against them.
A 1-0 defeat at West Ham on Saturday saw Sean Dyche’s side drift eight points from safety with just three games remaining.
Burnley created good chances at Upton Park but lost to a Mark Noble penalty after Michael Duff had been sent off for upending Cheikhou Kouyate.
Despite a fourth straight defeat and the possibility of being relegated at Hull next weekend, Taylor says the Clarets will still believe they can stay up.
“We couldn’t get the ball over the line, it is difficult to take”.
“We need to pick up some points,” Taylor said. “It is all we can do. As a professional footballer who has pride in his performance, we have got to go out there and put in good performances.
“We didn’t play badly with 10 men but when you have a player sent off away from home it is always going to be tough.”
Manager Sean Dyche echoed Taylor’s comments and admitted a lack of goals has been Burnley’s downfall: they have now gone over nine hours without one in the Premier League.
“The players will keep going, I’m absolutely sure of that, because I’ll keep going,” Dyche said. “It [scoring] is the hardest thing in the game at any level, particularly this level. That’s why you see astronomical fees paid for strikers and attacking players who can create things.
“Over the season I’ve been happy with the chances we created. There were a couple against West Ham which were really good chances and you have to take them.
Noble scored what was West Ham’s first successfully-converted penalty of the Premier League season and the midfielder has now set a target on finishing the campaign in the manner in which they started it.
“Fifty points is in our sights and one more win will get us there,” he said.
“Who’s to say we can’t go and beat that 50-point barrier and finish as high up as we can. It’s two clean sheets in a row, which is massive.
“It’s much better for us, because if you keep clean sheets you can’t lose games and that’s what we haven’t been doing up until recently.”
The last couple of games have been against teams fighting for their lives and I’ve been in that position so I know how much you have a go.
“We’re expected to win against Burnley here, even if they’ve got 11 men, so there’s pressure anyway. As soon as they went down to 10 men, I scored the penalty and that eased it a little bit. We could enjoy ourselves a little bit after that.”
Having already faced Leicester, QPR and Burnley in recent weeks, Sam Allardyce’s Hammers will still have a big say on the relegation fight as they come up against Aston Villa and Newcastle in the closing fixtures to the season.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments