FOR a man whose mood rarely dips below the cheerful, Jason McAteer was alarmingly maudlin on Saturday evening.

As the Sunderland midfielder walked through the Stadium of Light press room, Graeme Sharp - the former Everton striker and an acquaintance of McAteer's from his time on Merseyside - asked him how he was feeling.

"I've been better," was his downbeat reply, and the pain from being made the scapegoat of Sunderland's 1-0 defeat to Everton was writ large across his pallid complexion.

Which is why it was so satisfying for McAteer, his teammates and the manager who has stood four-square behind his £1m acquisition from Blackburn Rovers when he emerged from the most difficult time of his Sunderland career with Wednesday's winning goal at Leeds United.

Claudio Reyna could see the hurt in his colleague's eyes in the dressing room after the Everton game, and then again at training on Monday and Tuesday as the memory of his treatment at the hands of some Sunderland fans remained horribly fresh.

The American attempted to ease the 31-year-old's misery, but he knew that McAteer's Elland Road experience will have done far more than any amount of consoling words or reassuring pats on the back.

Reyna said: "You could see this week that Jason was feeling down. All footballers have bad games and he was frustrated on Saturday. But you can't dwell on it.

"It's very seldom that a player will get picked out and harassed by the fans. Jason does a lot of hard work that goes unnoticed by people, but when you're on his team you know what an asset he is.

"The most important thing is how you react to something like that. You have to work hard and try to put it right, and Jason put it all behind him and gave a really good performance.

"Everyone was down because we lost but it was great that Jason was the one who scored at Leeds.

"He's got a great attitude. He can play in many positions and he covered a lot of ground on Wednesday. You need players like Jason in your team if you're going to be successful.

"We couldn't feel sorry for ourselves, and Jason couldn't feel sorry for himself. He's played in football long enough to know there are ups and downs, and he's experienced enough to bounce back from Saturday."

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