Sunderland-Newcastle United Preview

Posted Saturday, October 30, 2010 by YAHOO Sport

LONDON (SE) - Chris Hughton will send out his Newcastle team to face local rivals Sunderland at St James’s Park on Sunday convinced that his job is safe.

For a month now Hughton has been the subject of rumours that he was about to be deposed as manager and they surfaced again this week when Arsenal dumped them out of the League Cup 4-0.

Hughton led Newcastle back into the Premier League at the end of last season amid scenes of great jubilation.

But loyalties in football do not lie deep and there was talk on Tyneside of Alan Shearer coming back and Martin O’Neill taking over.

Newcastle’s board of directors have assured Hughton that he need not worry and a record of eleven points from nine Premier League fixtures hardly suggests a crisis.

Hughton said: “I don’t feel under any pressure. The team have responded to the challenges of the Premier League magnificently and we are in ninth place with every chance of going higher.

“No one likes losing at home 4-0 but we were beaten by a very good Arsenal side and for the first 45 minutes I felt we were as good as them in every department.”

If Newcastle can dispense with bitter local rivals Sunderland, the rumours will die again but Hughton knows it only takes a couple of defeats for them to surface again.

“You have to accept these things if you are a manager of a big club and at Newcastle there is a terrific expectation. The fans here deserve the best and I will do my best to see they get it.”

Newcastle are one match short of reaching a statistical landmark of 250 Premier League wins, only the seventh club to win that many.

But they will find rejuvenated Sunderland doing everything possible to prevent that happening at their expense.

The Black Cats have lost only once in nine matches and have gone 296 minutes since they last conceded a goal.

Steve Bruce was a Newcastle supporter as a boy but his loyalties have switched now and he presides over a Sunderland side which sits in seventh place with 12 points.

Bruce said: “I am not being fooled by that. There are three points separating us in seventh and Liverpool in 18th and it can all change in two or three games.

“I can’t see Liverpool being down there for long and you only need a bad run to be swapping places. We need to be at our best all the time.”

Last week in beating Aston Villa, Sunderland proved they could manage without the prodigious goal-scoring of England striker Darren Bent.

For 14 months, Sunderland only ever won if Bent scored. But they beat Villa 2-1 and the spell was broken.

Sunderland will have Kieran Richardson available after a hamstring injury while Steve Taylor and Sol Campbell are likely to join a long injury list for Newcastle.