I may be having sleepless nights but it’s my job to try to lift my players, says Coleman

CHRIS Coleman admits Sunderland’s plight is giving him sleepless nights, in a searingly honest appraisal of the club’s position in the wake of the 3-0 defeat against Aston Villa.

The Black Cats boss appeared close to the end of his tether after seeing his team regress after recent promising performances and roll over at the Stadium of Light.

Asked whether he regretted taking the job last November, Coleman said: “I made my choice, and of course I am a human being and I feel it hard.

“Like the players, like the fans, there are sleepless nights. It’s painful, it’s brutal at the moment.

“There’s still a chance for us, we keep on refusing to take it, and we keep on digging holes for ourselves, but there is still a chance – we have to keep fighting.

“Of course I am in pain now, it has been a tough night. But we have another game on Saturday [at QPR] and I need to lift myself and the players for that.

“I don’t like papering over cracks, I don’t like telling lies, and I could say that I am fine and fighting with my sleeves rolled up. But I am hurting as much as anybody.

“I feel the negativity, I feel the pull of it because it is such a big club heading in the wrong direction, and to turn it round is incredibly tough. But it is not unthinkable, it is not undoable, it is not impossible.

“It’s a challenge, it’s a tough one. I can handle it, I’ve had plenty of slaps in the face, plenty of failures, loads of defeats, but there is a manner in which you lose. And if you look at us, we are bottom of the league and that is worrying.

“That’s what I’ll be thinking of tonight and tomorrow. But that doesn’t matter because I have to lift the players, that’s my job.

“I have to get them ready for QPR because that’s the one good thing about the Championship, the games come thick and fast, and there is another one just around the corner.

“Maybe it is good that it is away from home because we don’t perform here, not enough.

“It’s down in the Smoke again, and maybe that will help us.”