Danny ready to face former loan club

It’s no surprise to hear that Danny Rose has a lot of time for Sunderland and hopes they do enough to stave off relegation – after Monday night’s game of course.

The full-back spent the 2012-13 campaign on loan at the Stadium of Light while the Black Cats were under the stewardship of Martin O’Neill and made 29 appearances for the club, predominantly in the Premier League.

Danny had already featured for us in the top flight, but an almost full season in Sunderland’s first team gave him the experience at that level that he needed in his development and he thrived in that environment on Wearside.

This term though, the Black Cats are in the middle of a relegation scrap and, with former Spur Gus Poyet now in charge, need every point they can get from their final eight games if they are to survive. Danny certainly hopes they can preserve their Premier League status.

“They are having a bad time and are without a win from their last six games, but I really hope after we play them that they can win enough games to stay up,” said the 23-year-old. “I loved my time up there, Martin O’Neill was a great manager for me and he gave me a lot of confidence to go and express myself on the pitch. He was willing to give me games and I have a lot to thank him, the club and the Sunderland fans for.

“I hope they stay up, there isn’t a much bigger prize to fight for than Premier League survival and that’s the position they find themselves in.

“It will be a tough game but we are still fighting ourselves to finish as high as we possibly can and we certainly want to respond following our last game against Liverpool. We were all disappointed both from a personal and a team perspective after that result.

“We haven’t performed as well as we know we can at times and have been too inconsistent this season. But we have six matches left now, starting against Sunderland, all games which we believe are winnable and our target is go out and win all six, to finish the season as strong as possible.”