回帖︰新特蘭個邊的情況……
BRUCE HOPEFUL OVER HAMMERS CLASH
Sunderland boss Steve Bruce is hopeful Sunday's Barclays Premier League clash with West Ham will go ahead but admitted his team's preparations have been severely hampered by the weather.
Thick snow has blanketed the North East for the past week, leaving the Black Cats unable to use their training ground and instead forcing them to train on the Stadium of Light pitch.
That is in good condition and only concerns about the stadium and surrounding areas could put the game in doubt, but Bruce cannot see a problem providing there is no significant further snowfall.
He said: "Obviously it's the surrounding areas and what comes within the next 24 hours. At the moment, there seems to be no problem with the stadium."
Battling the elements is something Bruce has had to get used to after a prolonged spell of cold weather also affected Sunderland badly last winter.
"Up in the North East I think we've had it worse than anybody else," he continued. "We've had it for the best part of eight days. We've trained at the stadium, we've had to. When there's two foot of snow, there's not much else you can do.
"A lot of people have worked extremely hard to get the stadium ready and get the pitch ready. Of course your worry is about the pitch but it's bearing up well at the moment.
"It does cause a problem up here. It certainly disrupted us all last year, we had something like six weeks of it. We're into a week now and the weather forecast isn't looking very good so we'll just have to do the best we can.
"There's no question you can't prepare like you should do. And I'm sure the one thing we all try to do is make sure that the preparation is right. It's a vital part of it."
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