Premier League preview: Fulham v Sunderland

Sunderland will look to continue their winning ways when they travel to London to face Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

The Black Cats have excelled in the Premier League this season, defeating the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City on their way to a seventh-place standing in the league table.

But assistant coach Eric Black is not getting caught up in the furore surrounding Steve Bruce’s side, and was quick to remind pundits that they suffered a demoralising 1-0 loss to Fulham in London last season.

“The day down there was one of our most disappointing of last season,” Black said.

“We had some poor performances away from home last year and that was one of the poorest. We just didn’t turn up and it was a let-down.”

Black also added that struggling Fulham, who are languishing at the wrong end of the Premier League table, remain every bit as threatening as when they reached the Europa League final last season under Roy Hodgson’s tenure.

“They are a good footballing team who haven’t changed an awful lot since Roy was in charge. They work the ball around exceptionally well,” he said.

“Despite the loss of players like (Bobby) Zamora and (Moussa) Dembele, still have proven goal scorers in their ranks and we will have to be aware of players such as (Clint) Dempsey, (Zoltan) Gera and Andy Johnson.”

Given their injury woes up front, Fulham striker Diomansy Kamara, who scored in their 2-1 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates on Saturday, is hopeful of retaining his place in the starting 11.

“There’s a lot of competition but some strikers are injured at the moment, so it’s nice for me to start and get on the scoresheet,” Kamara said.

“I’ve been working hard. We’ve got a lot of strikers, AJ (Johnson) is back, but I played well and scored.”