Jack Rodwell: 'Sunderland will fight until the end'

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 04 January 2017

Sunderland midfielder Jack Rodwell vows to fight until the end to avoid relegation from the Premier League, but insists that the club have survived from worse positions.

Sunderland midfielder Jack Rodwell has insisted that his side will fight until the end in order to avoid relegation from the Premier League this season.

The Black Cats currently sit 18th in the Premier League table, one point from safety following their 2-2 draw with Liverpool on Monday.

Rodwell acknowledged that his side are deeply embroiled in a relegation battle, but pointed out that they had been in worse situations before and still managed to survive.

"You look at it now, and to be honest I think we have been in worse positions. There have been times with five or six games to go and I have thought 'Bloody hell', and that has been a lot worse than what I feel now. There are still a lot of games to go, there are still only three or four points between us and 15th or whatever," he is quoted as saying by The Chronicle.

"You put a few wins together and you are almost safe. We want it to be in our hands. It's when you look at games that are 'must-win' games when you think you are in trouble. That's when you start to think the pressure is on. We are obviously in a fight until the end, we are in a fight, but we have to keep going and showing what we are doing. We need to pick it up in the second half of the season like we have in the last few seasons.

"The results haven't been there all the time but the performances haven't been that bad, just some of the results. Obviously it can get better but I don't think it's quite as bad as what the league shows at the moment. We know we have to get more points and we need to keep going. We knew we had to bounce back [after Burnley] and give a good performance [against Liverpool] and I think we did that.

"We have won a few games at home of late. Obviously the start we made to the season we had to recover and put it behind us, but we have gone on a good run at home lately. We need to keep doing it and get up the board. Burnley wasn't pretty. It was tough because we only had one day to recover mentally and physically [for the visit of Liverpool]. That's credit to the lads really."

Sunderland will host Stoke City in their next league game.