Lee Johnson spoke about Sunderland's 1-1 draw with Oxford, the state of the pitch and was impressed with Alex Pritchard's performance...
EXPECTATION
"Expectation is huge here and rightly so. But there are sides who are pretty close too. It is a close league. What you have to do is be consistent, creative and you have to do everything you can to score twos and threes."
SOL PITCH
“I thought we did well. The pitch isn’t conducive to the way we want to play. The first five or six games it was zipping around with the spin on the ball, but it is almost tumbleweed the way we move the ball out there are the moment."
WINCHESTER
"That is why someone like Carl Winchester is important, he was outstanding. The mileage and energy he put in, he tried to drive forward as often as he could. He is very competitive in the middle."
CHANGE OF STYLE
"We have to change our style at times based on the environment and that is classic League One football. You have to win in many different ways. I am full of praise for the way we played but we haven’t got the win. In terms of the quality on show, the level of sheer territory second half we deserved more from the game.”
INJURIES
There were seven academy graduates in and around the squad, which highlights the injury scenario, but you have to credit these boys for how hard these have worked against a very good Oxford side."
FLIPPED SHAPE
“We flipped the shape second half, it was a different square peg in a different round hole, but we couldn’t get that ball over the line. Whether that was good goalkeeping, bad finishing, we just failed to get that final delivery."
PRITCHARD
"Pritch is going to be important for us and I think you see that as well. We are still building him up. He's 95 percent fit and I think he has that quality to unlock doors at this level that most people haven't. Pritch was blowing. I'm close to the pitch and I could see that at that point he was struggling to get air into his lungs in terms of recovery,"
SUBS
"We put Embo [Elliot Embleton] into the number ten role, he has that similar quality to Pritchard, and Briz [Aiden O'Brien] came on and gives us fresh legs and energy."
UPDATES
"Harris is out, Ellis Taylor has a bug, Frederik Alves got a shoulder injury in training and we don't know how long that will take but hopefully it's not too bad. Lee Burge is fit but just wasn't involved."
YOUTH
"We're a club that has set its stall out to try and bring young players through. There have been some really outstanding performances this year and at times the young players have carried us. If you look at our injuries to senior players, these are the guys you would be expecting to play every week and be the stalwarts. I'm full of praise for my players."
