ONE win in eight games has set alarm bells ringing at Sunderland, but midfielder David Vaughan believes Sunderland have enough experience to keep them out the Premier League's relegation zone this weekend.

Saturday's trip to the Reebok Stadium to face Bolton Wanderers has become a must win game for the Black Cats if they are to avoid falling into the bottom three after they suffered their fourth defeat of the campaign at Arsenal last Sunday.

Vaughan was one of ten players to arrive at the Stadium of Light during a summer of wholesale changes to the squad, but six of those were already established in England's top flight.

With pressure already on Steve Bruce and his players to turn things around, Vaughan insists everyone at the club is confident results will come and he believes the wealth of experience the squad boasts will be a key factor in turning the club's fortunes around.

A defeat would mount even more pressure on Bruce, who knows owner and chairman Ellis Short is watching closely to see if the Black Cats boss can dig his side out of their precarious position.

Like Sunderland, Bolton have also endured a difficult campaign thus far and with the Trotters desperate to record their first home win of the season, there is plenty at stake for both sides.

"The experience a lot of the players have got is good and you can fall back on it when times are tough so you're not panicking," the 28-year-old said.

"You'd like to think that will come into play over the course of the season.

"With experience you can see the situations panning out a bit better than if you've not been through it before. We've only played seven or eight games, there's still a long way to go so hopefully we can get where we want to be.

"The dressing room's been quite good. We're confident we can get results. It's still really early in the season and if we can put two or three good results together we climb up the table.

"It's not in a bad situation at the moment, so the dressing room's quite good.

"Sunderland had a really good start last season up until Christmas time, then fell away a bit, like Blackpool did. If we can be more consistent over the course of the season, hopefully we can emulate what we did last year.

"We're playing in patches in games and not being able to do it over the 90 minutes, which is disappointing. If we can work on that and produce a more consistent performance over the 90 minutes hopefully we can get the results we need."

Vaughan was handed his third consecutive start at the Emirates in a game where Sunderland could have come away with at least a point.

After going a goal behind just one minute into the game thanks to Robin Van Persie's strike, a superb free-kick from Seb Larsson put the Wearsiders on level terms.

The goal seemed to spark the visitors into action and had it not been for a couple of missed chances, Bruce's men could have taken the lead before Van Persie's late free-kick condemned them to defeat.

Amid the disappointment of not getting anything from the game, Welsh international Vaughan believes the side can take plenty of positives from their display into Saturday's trip to Lancashire.

He said: "It was disappointing after the game that we lost but you've got to take the positives out of it.

"At least we showed a bit more spirit in the game and played a bit better than we have in a few of the games recently, so we've got to try and build on that."