Keane calls for strong performance

Sunderland boss Roy Keane has warned his players not to get carried away by their battling performance at Arsenal.

The Black Cats head back to the capital tomorrow to face West Ham less than a fortnight after staging a remarkable fightback at the Emirates Stadium.

Trailing 2-0 to Arsene Wenger's high-fliers — and it could have been worse had a harsh offside flag not denied the Gunners a third — Sunderland fought back to level the scores before Robin van Persie's winner 11 minutes from time.

Such spirited resurgence won them plenty of praise, but Keane pointed to the fact that they still returned empty-handed as evidence of the need for further improvement.

He said: "We were beaten and we certainly gave two bad goals away and we came away with nothing.

"But we showed a good attitude and a good spirit which was there for everyone to see. That has never been an issue.

"But that certainly is not enough. Spirit and attitude gets you so far, but you also need to have that discipline.

"If teams are going to beat you or are going to score goals against you, then you have certainly got to make them work for it.

"We probably didn't do that well enough in the last couple of games.

"When you lose a football game, you shouldn't be on a high. Far from it.

"We do not want to go down that road of people saying, 'You are not too bad. You are losing games, but it is not that bad'.

"It is about getting the right results. We just have to keep going and cut out the silly mistakes that are costing us goals."

No-one who has witnessed Keane's career in football should be at all surprised at his comments despite his staunch backing for his players.

He invested more than £35million during the summer to assemble a squad he firmly believes will not only survive in the top flight, but make a genuine impact.

While the defeat at Arsenal left them with no tangible reward for their efforts, he is hoping the nature of the performance will help the players believe what he has been drumming into them from day one.

Keane added: "We hope so, sometimes the last people to believe that are the players.

"I don't get that feeling, the feeling I get from most of the players is they can hold their own and they are confident. They seem a confident bunch.

"But it helps if you put on a relatively decent performance or a decent spell in a game where you can retain the ball and score a couple of goals and possibly score one or two more.

"That can only help the team. As much as we can, we try to drill it into their heads, but it does help when they go out and perform at a decent level."

All that will be forgotten, however, when the Black Cats run out at Upton Park desperate to bounce back from back-to-back defeats which have seen them slip to within a single point of the drop zone.

Keane said: "We are not in a position as a team or a club yet to go into games and play badly and get results.

"We really have to play well to grind out these wins, and we will need to do that on Sunday."

Keane will be without the suspended Paul McShane, who starts a three-match ban, while Andy Cole and Carlos Edwards remain on the sidelines with calf and hamstring problems respectively.