Cattermole: Sunderland pushing for Europe

Sunderland captain Lee Cattermole believes his side have what it takes to be playing in Europe next season.

Steve Bruce’s men have shown strong resilience to be sitting in seventh place in the Premier League standings after 16 games, and Cattermole has backed the team to continue their success.

“You can see the club is going places and we all need to keep pulling together and working hard. No-one has said it yet, but I think we all believe we can go somewhere,” Cattermole told the Sunderland Echo.

Sunderland can consolidate their league position with a strong showing in their final games for 2010, and Cattermole believes that upcoming fixtures against Fulham (17th), Bolton (sixth), Manchester United (second) and Blackpool (13th) are all winnable.

“We are going into a good run of games and we have to make the most of them,” the sturdy midfielder said.

“The gaffer (Bruce) pulled us to one side in training last week and said we need to try to get 10 or 12 points this month to get us into the top six.”

“We have made a decent start and that’s helped with the league position. Last week, we were seventh, but there were a lot of teams on the same points.”