Jason McAteer is sitting inside Sunderland’s training ground. It is a work of modern art, encircled by a moat of mud. Inside, it smells of new carpets. Now, as then, he is carrying an injury. Eight months ago, after 45 minutes of purgatory, McAteer’s knee was throbbing and his dreams crumbling. McCarthy pointed towards the two words that came to encapsulate Ireland’s turbulent summer. They drew 1-1 and moved on.

“We could have gone either way,” McAteer said, “and we made the decision that we were going to have a right good go. That’s how Mick is. He wasn’t going to let us mope around, or bow to the pressure. It’s the same now. I spoke to him when he first got this job. What does he say? ‘Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. Six points.’ He cracked on straight away. Job to be done. No regrets.”

On Wednesday morning, when McCarthy was named Sunderland’s third manager of the season, he spoke of his empathy with Wearside people; like his own folk in Barnsley, they are mining stock (although the pit-wheel propped outside the Stadium of Light mourns a decimated industry), who are passionate about football and “appreciate people who give 100 per cent”.

Niall Quinn tells a story in his autobiography. He was young — “like a pipe-cleaner” — and playing for Arsenal. McCarthy was at Manchester City. In the early minutes of a match “Mick ran me over . . . it was supposed to scare me. It did.” Later, Quinn aimed an elbow at his assailant. “He thought a lot more of me after that,” the former centre forward said. “That’s Mick McCarthy.”

It is old-fashioned and raw. “He’s a very honest person,” McAteer said. “That’s what I like in a player-manager relationship. He’s a hard man — you want to see him in training. Even in five-a-sides, if he doesn’t win he hates it. That’s what he was like as a player. Most managers end up like that. You can see it in them. Mick is similar. He manages like he played.”

So there is a bit of Sunderland in McCarthy and a slice of Ireland in Sunderland. McAteer is there, as are Kevin Kilbane, Thomas Butler, Phil Babb, Sean Thornton and Cliff Byrne. And when McCarthy strides on to the pitch at 2.50pm this afternoon to acknowledge the ovation of a 40,000 crowd — an act of showmanship from which Howard Wilkinson recoiled — Irish bands will be playing.

“Mick can get this club back on track,” McAteer said. “He’s got the pedigree. He knows what it takes. Ireland was no Italy — he wasn’t dealing with 22 superstars — but he knows how to grind a result out, how to handle players. He’s very cute and clever at that. And this club is very much like an Ireland team; we drink a lot and run around like nutters.”

The remark prompted laughter — a welcome change — and in one respect, McCarthy agreed with his jocular midfield player yesterday. “They have been running around like headless chickens,” he said. “Those probably aren’t the right words, but they’ve been trying to impress, working hard, putting the effort in. It’s been brilliant. I hope I’ve had the right response.”

When Wilkinson was named as Peter Reid’s successor last October, the tone was different. “I haven’t got a bad word to say about him,” McAteer said, “but the club obviously feel they made a mistake because Mick’s here now. What didn’t help Howard was that he had been out of the game for so long. And he’s such a dry person, a straight-batter who does things by the book.

“Mick has been in the public eye, on the telly, at the World Cup. Howard had been sitting at a desk at the Football Association. The supporters were wary of him and the bookies spoke for them. Mick was the favourite last time around and then Howard came from nowhere. We were shocked. It was like, ‘oh, right then, well, where’s he been for the last six years?’ So the book was already out on him.”

There was a barely a blip in what McAteer described as Sunderland’s “losing mentality”, the dread of giving the ball away because “you haven’t got another mistake in your locker”. It is what McCarthy has to strain against, today at home to Bolton — managed by Sam Allardyce, his friend — and for the next eight games if Sunderland are to avoid relegation. McAteer now puts their chances at 70-30.

As a player, McCarthy went down with City in 1987. How did it feel? “Awful, gut-wrenching”. It will take “moral courage” to put things right, he said. McAteer recalled McCarthy’s last days with Ireland. “He won’t like me for saying this, but he was looking old,” he said. McCarthy got through it with no regrets. He will ensure that Sunderland can say the same.

Fight for Survival

SUNDERLAND’S RUN-IN

Today: Bolton (h)
March 22: West Ham (a)
April 5: Chelsea (h)
April 12: Birmingham (a)
April 19: West Brom (h)
April 21: Man City (a)
April 26: Newcastle (h)
May 3: Aston Villa (a)
May 11: Arsenal (h)