Kenwyne: I could have done better.
By: Sunderland Echo.
Despite winning the man-of-the-match award at the weekend, Kenwyne Jones was critical of his own performance in Sunderland's 3-1 defeat at West Ham.
The £6million forward terrorised the Hammers defence, scored his side's goal, created other chances and might have had a hat-trick on another day, writes Graeme Anderson.
It was a display which earned him the bottles of bubbly from sponsors at the final whistle. But it's a sign of the standards that the 23-year-old is setting himself that he left Upton Park feeling a certain responsibility that his side had not been able to get something out of a game in which they were on top for long periods.
"After the goal I scored, I should have scored more,'' he said. "Had I scored again it would have turned the game but we paid the price for missing chances. You can only do the best you can on the day and that was our best on Sunday but we have a week to work now to get our best performance against Fulham.
"Every game is going to be vital. Whether it is Fulham, Derby or Manchester United, they are all vital.
"We need points from every game and good performances.
"Hopefully the time and results are about to change."
The striker has been as dejected as anyone by a run of three defeats on the trot but he reckons that the school of hard knocks in the Premier League has taught Roy Keane's largely inexperienced side some harsh lessons.
And Jones expects to see more steel from Sunderland in the performances coming up.
"We were really disappointed by the defeat." he said. "We have to kill off teams and hopefully in the next few weeks we will learn to do that.
"We can never say it is going to be easy. If we want to stay in the Premier then we have to beat the teams that are around us. If we don't do that we will go straight back down.
"We know we are good footballers and we need to turn these good performances into good wins. We need to turn it around now and quickly.
We will hit the training pitch as soon as we can and we have to try to make sure that we become more ruthless.
"Maybe that lack of Premier League experience has cost us in the first couple of months of the season. I really feel that the naivety has gone. It feels like it is disappearing and I'm sure that by the time we reach 11 games that will show.
"We know that it's not just about scoring goals and taking chances. It's also about cutting out the mistakes and the errors that we have been making."
