Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill has admitted that he feared the side would be relegated as he took the job on earlier this season.
The Northern Irishman replaced the sacked Steve Bruce back in December with the Black Cats in big trouble, but he has steered them away from relegation and towards the safety of mid-table.
However, O’Neill looks back on the earlier part of the season and admits that it could have been different for the Wearside club.
“It’s a completely different outlook from my first game. We should now start to look up the table a wee bit,” he told Mirror Football.
“I was genuinely fearful for our position back then.
“I’d been at Wolves and watched the game [when Sunderland lost 2-1 to two late goals after Steve Bruce’s sacking], and watched us take the lead, but I knew from the minute we missed the penalty that we might lose the game. You just felt it.
“And of course they lost that match, and Wolves went on to 14 points and we were stuck on 11.
“They [Wolves] have not moved on greatly since then and if we’d had another loss, particularly at home to Blackburn, they would have shot up the table and that would have really concerned us.
“I’ll go in a lot less nervous than I did at the time – though I’ll still be nervous, knowing me. It was such a big game for us, which obviously we wanted to win.
“With 37 points on the board, I’d love to have 40 just to be safe – 37 might keep teams up. With 10 games to go, if you’d said to me with 11 points on the board before Blackburn, if you’d given me 37 I’d probably have rushed out and taken it,” he concluded.
By Gareth McKnight
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