Keane Happy with Vital Victory

Sunderland manager Roy Keane was pleased with his sides vital win against fellow strugglers Birmingham.

Keane told safc.com "I don't think the performance was great - the big plus was getting a result without playing well. It was a good, professional performance. Every victory is important and the players have got to enjoy it, they worked their socks off. We've got to try to beat the other teams at the bottom, especially at home."

"We've been doing OK, we're heading in the right direction. Yorkie got injured and had to come at at half-time, it disrupted us. He will be out for Saturday. Every game provides a different test and we got a victory and a clean sheet. I thought we were unlucky to have a third disallowed."

"I'm delighted for Bardo. You've got to tackle people in this game and he did that well. I was tempted to start Prica but I thought it would be unfair. We had to change it because of an injury to Yorkie and he came on and did well - and scored a goal."

"He took the goal very well, he anticipated it, he had that instinct and then he had the ability to finish it. The priority is where we are in the league May, not tonight. We go to Liverpool on Saturday and it's another massive test for us."

"We are always talking about the strikers but our goalkeeper and defenders will be pleased with the clean sheet, because they have been heavily criticised. They should enjoy it."

"If we pick up the results, the league table will take care of itself. We've got to beat the teams around us and that will dictate our season. We've got Liverpool and then Wigan, more big games."

"It's nice for me to be able to say we didn't play particularly well and still win. You have to learn how to win games, and you do that by winning when you don't play well. We did that tonight."


Vital Sunderland Says

A great result for us a some good performances from the new lads. Phil Bardsley had a good debut solid when defending and looked a threat going forward. Prica had a good debut and deserved his goal.

Now they need to repeat their performances for the rest of the season.