Sunderland players will return from the international break ready to 'compete' for the chance of a Championship play-off place. The Black Cats are currently seven points behind sixth-placed Millwall with eight games to play.
A push to climb back up the table is certainly not out of the question, although there are a raft of teams all competing to be in the end-of-season shake-up. And the Wearsiders know they must reverse a run of form which has seen them pick up just one win in their last seven Championship fixtures.
They return to action with a Friday night trip to runaway league leaders Burnley on March 31, but Sunderland defender Luke O'Nien insists there is no reason why Tony Mowbray's side can't mix it with the league's elite. And a return to form could see them mount a late charge for the play-offs.
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The Black Cats saw the promotion charge derailed slightly with a series of tough fixures against the division's top sides. Although they returned from Norwich with an impressive 1-0 win, they narrowly lost to Sheffield United and Coventry City and drew with Luton at the weekend.
However, it was the defeats to Rotherham and Stoke which put a real spanner in the works - but O'Nien is not in the mood for throwing in the towel yet.
“When we take each game in isolation, there is no reason why we can’t compete," O'Nien said. "We were competitive against Norwich and Sheffield United, and we should have taken some points. Burnley when they came to our place, we were 2-0 up.
“If you take each game in isolation, there has been two or three games where we haven’t turned up and that is down to ourselves. There is no reason why we can’t go on and get lots more points. The team is in a really good position.
"Where we are, I think we would have taken that at the start of the season at this point. But now we are where we are, we’ve got to make sure we don’t rest on our laurels and kick on.”
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