Sunderland started the season with a 1-1 draw against Oxford, continuing the story of last season with another draw. Jack Ross wasn’t happy with the result and neither were most of 33,00 who turned up to support the team.
"We can't afford to be satisfied with settling for a point at home," he said. "We can't come away from today's game saying we are happy with the end result. The difficulty comes from conceding a goal in the early part of the game because it gives teams something to protect. That means the game can become a bit frantic. On the flip side, I can't ask an awful lot more from my players in terms of what they put in. We had 35 crosses or something which shows the amount of territory we had when we worked the ball into wide areas. We need to create more from those opportunities and we need to be more ruthless at both ends of the park."
Ross also revealed that Grant Leadbitter will captain Sunderland this season. “Grant will take the captaincy on. I spoke to him yesterday and he will assume that role and responsibility, and he is more than happy to do so. He will play a lot of games for us this season, and it was not an easy decision to leave him out today. Jon wearing the armband today was due to Grant not starting the match.”
