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Phillips sounds rallying call for Sunderland

Damian Spellman
Thursday 30 January 2003 01:00 GMT
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The Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips has urged his team-mates to throw caution to the wind against Charlton on Saturday and fire themselves out of relegation trouble. The 29-year-old England international is determined to come out with all guns blazing as Howard Wilkinson's shell-shocked side attempt to restore the fortress tag to the Stadium of Light after a dreadful run of results on Wearside.

Tuesday's 1-0 home defeat by Southampton was their seventh in the league this season and left them sitting in an extremely uncomfortably position inside the bottom three, with morale at a depressing low after a run of just 11 wins in their last 39 Premiership games on home turf.

Saturday's match is a must-win game for the Black Cats and Phillips is calling for an all-out assault.

"Away from home, I think we've relaxed a little bit and we've knocked the ball around well," said the striker. "At home, we've been a little bit tentative. I would never sit here and have a go at our supporters, but you can sense that they're on the edge of their seats. They've had enough, and you can't blame them.

"It's up to us now. Starting on Saturday, we've just got to get into the attitude of 'Sod it, we've got to have a go'. It's a simple as that.

"No one wants to mention relegation. But we're in it – it's as simple as that. We've just got to forget about everything, try to enjoy it and get back to playing free-flowing football, get the supporters back on our side and go for it from now until the end of the season."

Bolton's home defeat by Everton on Tuesday means Sunderland are still within one victory of overhauling the team in 17th place, although with just 13 games to play crunch time is fast approaching.

The current situation is all the more painful for Phillips and the club captain, Michael Gray, because they were key members of the side which twice in succession finished seventh in the Premiership under Sunderland's former boss Peter Reid.

"Of course it's difficult," admitted Phillips. "Me and Micky have seen some great times here. I'm sure we always felt there was going to come a difficult time but I don't think we probably thought it was going to be as long as it's been.

"But the good thing is we've got Saturday coming very quickly, another home match, and if we can put it right then we can start again and – we hope – get on a little run."

Sunderland's woes were compounded by James Beattie's 50th-minute strike which, in contrast, helped the Saints to climb back into the top six. The Southampton manager, Gordon Strachan, was a happy man after seeing his side produce a battling display on a difficult night.

"It's not a great win but it makes us feel a lot better about ourselves," Strachan said. "That adds to the confidence of the group. That's where you get it from.

"The difference between the two teams was that we've built up a bit of a comfort zone for ourselves. To get to that stage, we've had to battle and scrape and we've eventually got there and we can relax and play some better football."

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