Sunderland take on Derby County in an early relegation battle clash with both the teams in desperate need of points after a poor start to the Premiership season.

Five defeats in seven matches has seen Sunderland slip into the bottom three of the league table and the team will have to perform a lot better in the coming matches if it has any chances of lifting themselves out of the drop zone and survive in the league for the next season.

Manager Roy Keane will be looking for a much improved performance especially from his defense after Sunderland suffered a humiliating 7-1 defeat at the hands of Everton in their last match. With Derby being one of the favorites for the drop, Keane will be hoping that his team picks up all three points on the weekend and hope to turn around a poor set of results.

Keane will be missing a number of key players as Nyron Nosworthy, Kenwyne Jones and Stanislav Varga are all injured as are Kieran Richardson and Russell Anderson.

Meanwhile Derby County will be looking to kick start their season and hope that they get some vital points as they attempt to lift themselves off the foot of the table. New manager Paul Jewell has a hard task on his hand and he is aware that he might be managing a Championship team if Derby are relegated.

Derby have lost five of their last six matches and more worryingly for the fans, have scored just 2 goals in their last ten matches and conceded 25 goals in the process.

Following the departure of coach Billy Davis, academy boss Kevin Thelwell will be in charge for the game although Paul Jewell was unveiled as the new boss early on Wednesday. Jewell chose Derby after rejecting offers from the Republic of Ireland and his old team Wigan.

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