Troy Deeney delivers strong verdict on Birmingham City ahead of Sunderland clash

The Black Cats take on the Blues tomorrow at St Andrew’s in the Championship. The game comes after Birmingham City drew 2-2 with Swansea City on Tuesday evening. Sunderland were last in action against Cardiff City on Saturday losing 1-0 at the Stadium of Light.

Following Birmingham’s draw against Swansea, Deeney delivered a strong verdict on the team’s fortunes and chances of success.

“It’s not time to get excited, not at all,” he said. “I am sure if we lose on Friday we will be four points off the bottom three, it’s just the nature of the Championship.

“I feel like we are a work in progress, like we are getting people believing back in the team and the squad. We had 19,000 last Friday, we are getting people buying into it which is great but still loads of work to do to progress us to being a genuine top ten team.

“We have got to keep our feet on the ground, we are 20 games in, people were saying we are relegation favourites and we bottom of every one of these so-called expert’s lists so we just have to keep working, keep believing and doing what we do. But we can get better, there is room to improve, so we have to improve.”

“Remember the experts said we are bottom, so we are going to have to listen to the experts – we don’t get carried away. You know what I’m like, we demand more.

“So when we draw I don’t sit there and go ‘Well done’ because I scored, I say 'We need to do more.' When we win I say 'We need to do more' and when we lose I say 'We definitely need to do more'. As long as there’s more to be done we will always do it.

“There’s work to be done, our crossing from corners was really poor against Swansea, our set pieces are really strong as proved on Saturday. So we need to get consistent. Until we get that and there’s nothing I can complain about then we will keep carrying on.”