Collins happy to face a fight for first-team spot

11:24am Saturday 6th September 2008

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DANNY Collins may have been voted Sunderland’s player of the season last term, but he’s bracing himself for a battle to retain his place in the Black Cats’ back four.

With Roy Keane finally landing a specialist left-back following the transfer deadline day capture of George McCartney, Collins’ days in a left-sided berth look like a thing of the past.

With £8m centre-back Anton Ferdinand expected to be a first-team regular this season once he regains full fitness, Collins cannot take a place in the starting line-up for granted.

But the Wales international is relishing the challenge.

“I’ve played more games than anyone under the gaffer since he’s been here so there’s not a lot more I can do than that,” said Collins, who has been impressed this summer by the pedigree of some of the new arrivals in The Stadium of Light dressing room.

“Anton (Ferdinand) has come in so it will be me, Nyron and Anton pushing for the two shirts. I’ve just got to work hard.

“Hopefully now we can push each other and have competition for places. Having stayed up last year it was going to help us attract more players.

“One or two of the players who have come in have perhaps thought now’s the time to come up here and be part of a club going in the right direction.

“Djibril (Cisse) has been at Liverpool, as has Dioufy (El Hadji Diouf), so people must be thinking, ‘Something’s going right up there, why have they gone? It’s worth looking at.’ Collins believes the Premier League doesn’t do the Black Cats justice at present and Sunderland should have picked up more than the three points that currently see them languishing third from bottom of the table.

“We played well in the first game against Liverpool and were unlucky not to come away with something,” said Collins. “We did well at Tottenham and came away with a good win.

“ It was just disappointing that in the second half against Manchester City we let ourselves down – you couldn’t just put the blame on us because we conceded three goals, as a team I don’t think we played well.”

Collins, who played understudy to McCartney during the former West Ham player’s first spell on Wearside, believes the return of the Northern Ireland international was an astute piece of business by the club.

“He’s a good player, George, he gets up and down the flank and he’s a good lad,” said Collins. “It will be good to get him back on board.

“I’m not going to say a bad word about any of the other players. But it was a bad result last week (Manchester City) and we need to get our heads together really.

“There’s a few boys away with their countries so they’ll have chance to get their minds off the weekend and those of us here will as well.

Then at the start of next week we’ll have chance to focus on the Wigan game.”