Mousa targets return to winning ways

Mousa Dembele wants us to pick up where we left off against Sunderland last season when we face the Black Cats on Saturday.

We took all three points after a convincing 5-1 win at White Hart Lane back in April, having also won 2-1 in the reverse fixture last December, and stretched our unbeaten record against the North-East club into an eighth game.

Mousa is unsure of how Gus Poyet’s side will respond after our big win last time out but he’s confident we’re capable of registering another victory as we seek to erase the memory of our 3-0 defeat against Liverpool last time out in the Premier League.

“It can go both ways against Sunderland,” said Mousa, who went on as a substitute for Belgium in their 2-0 friendly win against Australia during the international break last week.

“Maybe they know we’re a good team and they’re warned but still, for us, we have to believe that last year we had two good games against them and that this year is not going to be different.

“We need to continue to try to do well against them.

“Our last game against Liverpool was very disappointing of course and we have to learn from that defeat.

“We must continue to be sharp because there are other teams that have been doing well, but if we think about the games before Liverpool where we were very good we can get back to that and continue to improve.”