Sunderland v Southampton team news & stats

“If we play on our level, if we are doing what we have to do and what we used to do in the last few games, we are the better side”.

Long hasn’t featured for us since picking up a knock in the last worldwide window whilst he was with the Republic of Ireland, but he returned to training yesterday and JRod has been out since the two all draw with Leicester City three odd weeks ago.

“If he’d never met the Dutch guru Louis van Gaal, as well as Ronald Koeman, maybe my son would now be a carpenter or he’d be sitting with me in my van, selling coffee”, said Pelle’s father in an interview with Italian paper Gazzetta dello Sport.

There was precious little in Sunderland’s attacking play today to suggest they can mount a decent fightback up the table.

“It might not be what a player wants any more, because it can create panic in your life as a professional, with your family that you might not get that ultimate contract which you think you are worth”. Everybody is happy how he is and how he is recovering well.

“I expect him to be fit when the players get back from global duty the week after next”.

“We will take the negatives and fix them and build on the positives”.

Koeman told Southampton’s YouTube channel: “They are close, but still it’s too fast for them to be part of the team”.

“But if you’re coming into the frying pan you’ve got to accept what it is and the fact of the matter is, to survive you’ve got to get results”.

Rodriguez is still being held up by pain in his feet and is out, along with long-term absentees goalkeeper Fraser Forster and defender Florin Gardos. The performance? We’d like it to be magnificent, but winning is everything for us now and sometimes we’ll have to take it on the chin that the opposition is better than we are and we have to dig in. Five goals in his first eight games earned him his first Italy call-up at 29, and he promptly repaid Antonio Conte’s faith with the victor on his debut against Malta.

‘First of all, I think we have a good organisation in the team. We’re not in a position where we have to win our next game – we are more in a position where we must not lose it. We had not a lot of shots on target from our opponents and we like to continue’. “We have good competition for places and they’re making it hard for me to decide”.

Sunderland came away with nothing after a late defeat against Spurs when they deserved at least a share of the spoils, while they threw away a two-goal lead against West Ham in Dick Advocaat’s final game in charge.

Defoe eventually emerged from the bench with just over 15 minutes left to play, but Southampton dealt with everything the home team threw at them easily.