Sunderland 1-1 Wigan: The Daily Mirror match report

Niall Quinn has shown his frustration at Sunderland fans who add to the pressure on Steve Bruce’s struggling squad.

The burden of playing in front of an expectant crowd whilst in poor form is proving too much for too many of Bruce’s disjointed and ailing side.

That has created an understandable atmosphere of frustration when the going gets tough during home games, borne out of years of being a yo-yo club and suffering so many false new dawns.

Chairman Quinn has appealed for supporters to generate a positive atmosphere at the Stadium of Light, and also asked Bruce’s players to get their “swagger“ back.

Past managers including Peter Reid, Howard Wilkinson, Mick McCarthy have all experienced the morale sapping nature of life here when form dips. And with no wins in 11 league games, and a terrible first half show against Wigan, Bruce believes his side must inspire, rather than infuriate.

Quinn knows that is a player’s job to ignite the crowd but he also added: “People can give it out and that’s fine.  If any Sunderland fan think they are doing themselves or the club a favour by putting more pressure on the situation that’s for them to decide.

“But having been there and done it I know the best thing is when everybody gets behind the team because that helps the team get their confidence back and turn the corner. Let’s do that together and get ourselves up the league.

“Once we get a win under our belts I’m sure we will see people playing at their best again and the players will play with a swagger. At the moment that swagger is not apparent.”

And admitting this is now a relegation fight, Quinn added: “We all hoped at the start of the season that we’d have a comfortable year, well the reality is that we can’t. We have to knuckle down and drive forward.”

Sunderland were terrible in the first half falling behind to a super strike from Mohamed Diame. But a Kenwyne Jones header rescued a point as it improved after the break ahead of away games at Portsmouth and Arsenal. Sunderland could have had a win, but Darren Bent’s goal bound shot hit Jones on the line.

Bruce has tried every trick in his repertoire of managerial tactics to get his side firing. But he says it is now the responsibility of his players to get over the fretfulness that seem to wreck their ability to perform in front of an expectant home crowd.

“Every manager I spoke to, Roberto Martinez, Tony Pulis, all of them say when the club’s having a tough time here nervousness and the edginess just seeps all around and pours out. I’ve seen that myself.

“To get better we have to handle it and that’s big club mentality. The big clubs, when the going gets tough a bit, the big players stand up and be counted. We’ve got to make sure a few of them can handle it better.

“For instance Michael Turner will learn from it. No disrespect to his last club Hull, but there’s not an expectation there, he doesn’t get boos there if he kicks it off the pitch. The difficulty here is that they expect better than that.

“Believe me, it hurts. It hurts me. That’s for sure.. But I’ve never given in before in me life and I’m not going to start now, because it’s a bit tough at the minute. This is when you find out who’s around you and when you find out a lot and you look back on it. You need a result to turn things around.”

Alan Hutton, who made his debut at right back said: “Getting booed does not give me any problems. they pay there money and they are entitled to a performance. You just have to show them exactly what they can do. Personally it spurs me on because I want to show people what I can do and that is what we all did in the second half.”

Bruce is not trying to kid anyone about the difficult times he faces. “We’ve got to try and turn it around, because I agree that our form is unsustainable. We’ve got to try and do something. I’ll do my utmost. This is possibly the worst form I’ve ever experienced as a manager.”