Midfielder Ryan Mason has said that Hull will approach this weekend’s game against Sunderland the same way we approach all matches.
With victory over Southampton in the last game ahead of the international break, that was a huge boost for everyone given the run of form that Hull had been on, and obviously the hope is to continue that this weekend and register back to back victories as we travel to the Stadium of Light.
In many ways with both sides battling at the bottom of the table, it can easily be considered the traditional six pointer, but speaking to the Official Site in his own pre game press conference, Mason turned away from those thoughts, believing it was still way too early in the campaign to start talking about six pointer matches and clashes that would dictate how the table looks come next May.
‘Every game is important in the Premier League and it`s no different tomorrow. A lot has been made of the match because of the position of the two clubs but we won`t approach the game any differently to how we approached the game against Southampton. We`ve had a good couple of weeks at training and that has allowed us to concentrate on our team shape going into the weekend. We lost six players to their national teams and lost a couple through injury just before the break but everyone else has been fully concentrating on this game.’
He went on to explain.
‘We`re both in the relegation zone so people will want to put more and more pressure on it but we look at it as just another opportunity to get the three points. We got a good victory over Southampton before the break and that has set us up well going into the game tomorrow. Sunderland went down to Bournemouth and got a fantastic victory a fortnight ago so it`s going to be no great surprise if they come on to us early in the game. We`ve got to ride that little wave which they`ll throw at us in the early stages and if we can do that then we`ll have a fantastic opportunity to win the game.’
The former Tottenham Hotspur man will be lining up against an old colleague on Saturday in the shape of Jermaine Defoe, and the 25 year old more than knew the kind of threat he would pose us on the day.
‘Jermaine was brilliant for me when I was coming through at Spurs and is such a fantastic professional. He`s been a great goal-scorer all of his career and you still see now that he`s their biggest threat. We can`t afford to turn all our attention on stopping him though because they have other very talented footballers.’
