Bruce steeled for Gunners visit

Steve Bruce admits Sunderland’s bid to return to form is not getting any easier with the visit to title-chasing Arsenal this on Saturday.

Eighth placed Sunderland go to Arsenal on the back of a four game losing streak in the English Premier League and, with games against Liverpool and Manchester City to follow, there is no let-up on the horizon for a team at risk of sliding down the table.

But the Sunderland manager said his side have survived a tough run of fixtures before and he insisted they can do it again.

“You do get these daunting sets of fixtures coming along in the Premier League from time to time and we’re in one of them now,” he shrugged.

“It’s inevitable, given how many top teams there are in the division.”

“But the results don’t always work out how you might expect at first glance.”

“I remember after the Newcastle game we had a tough run of fixtures and everyone predicted hard times ahead for us.”

“But we did well, we beat Stoke, drew with Spurs and got that great result against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge during that run – that was the result of our season, possibly the result of the season.”

“So you can get good results in these runs.”

Sunderland have 10 league matches remaining, and Bruce argued there would be no easy outings for his side in the run home.

“Regardless of who you play now – be they at the top of the league, or at the bottom – they’re all difficult because we’re getting to the business end of the season,” he said.

“We haven’t had the best of results over the last month or so but we’ve got to still remain positive and hope we can go down to Arsenal and produced a performance and get a good result.”

“We know how tough it will be at the Emirates this weekend but we’ve had some good results against the top teams and we’ve got to keep at it and hope we can get that result which will turn it back in our favour again.”

Homegrown teenage striker Ryan Noble stands by to be involved again from the bench, with Sunderland still struggling with a lengthy injury list.

And that list has been added to this week with the news that first-choice keeper Craig Gordon is to see a specialist in Switzerland next week about his injured knee.

Still on the sidelines are Michael Turner, Fraizer Campbell, Danny Welbeck, Lee Cattermole and David Meyler.