"You can build foundations by staying up and become a little bit more attractive to players."
Alan Curbishley was speaking from experience as he explained the significance of Sunderland's 2-1 defeat of his West Ham United side at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. The manager is well aware of what it takes to stay up, having masterminded a run of seven wins from the last nine games to do just that last season. While his men were on the losing side at the weekend, the foundations are already in place for the future - not least with the emergence of talented teens to go with the established names.
Curbishley said: "Sunderland have gone for it and if they do stay up, they've got their rewards for it because next year is another season ... I'm sure they've had some cruel ends to games this year or haven't quite got what they deserved but you make your own luck and, as I said to Roy [Keane], 'Well done. That's two great results on the spin and that's massive when you're down the bottom'."
With six games to go, Curbishley knows his own team have every chance of another run - especially as four of the last half-dozen fixtures are at the Boleyn Ground. It may be that injuries, as at the weekend when four players picked up knocks, take their toll but the manager prefers to focus on the positives. While his side were on the receiving end of a last-gasp goal that cost them a point, he pointed to the fact "we've done it a couple of times ourselves this season".
Emphasising "great credit to the players that have been playing", he added: "I talk about my team because they've done fantastically well considering the problems we've had. It's just ridiculous the injury situation because we had four centre-halves, two wide players and three strikers out etc etc. I've got no complaints but it is frustrating because we've got a strong squad but we've not been able to use it."
The manager has learned much from such problems, for example the way Anton Ferdinand has coped with being the senior figure at centre-back since the loss of Matthew Upson to injury. "I think Anton has done great, to be honest," Curbishley said. "We started off with [Jonathan] Spector there, then [James] Tomkins has had to come on and Specs has gone to left-back then right-back. It's been very difficult for us.
"We'll have to see if Upson will be right for Portsmouth [on Tuesday week]. We don't want to put anyone at risk so we'll just have to see what we've got ... Obviously I was a bit disappointed that a lot of my players went off this week [on international duty]. A lot of them have been playing week in, week out and I've not been in a position to rest anybody and it looks as if it'll be that way for the rest of the season."
It is this situation though that has allowed the manager to blood the likes of Tomkins, Jack Collison and Freddie Sears this season. Tomkins celebrated his 19th birthday at the Stadium of Light and the manager was pleased with his contribution off the bench, claiming "we know we've got a player there". He added: "I'm in a fortunate position where they can learn without it being so vital. Freddie Sears, if he hadn't been injured, might have got a game as well so we'll have a look at that in the next six games."