The gaffer took responsibility for a poor first half, but was impressed with the turnaround in the second half and was full of praise for Sunderland's new super sub, Elliot Embleton...
GAME OF TWO HALVES
“If I’m being honest I probably didn’t make life easy for them in the first half. I’m probably guilty of overthinking their setup at the start of the game. We get a goal, we look threatening on the break, but we didn’t have control of the match and that’s probably unlike my teams really. Generally we want to have control in some way shape or form, dominate the ball in certain areas and we didn’t do that. I put that generally down to the setup, so we changed it just after half time. Like I said to the lads in there, I was really pleased with the second half performance because it hopefully eradicated the errors of some of the first half stuff.”
RESULT V PERFORMANCE
“That’s the most important thing (results). But what I’ve got to do is look at the part I’ve played. I think tactically from the majority of time I’ve been here, I’ve been quite happy with what I’ve done. The first half today, I just overcomplicated it. At the end of the day, we got the job done. We got in at half time, the second half was much more even- you could tell what was at stake. Again, one of the subs come on and make a big difference. I’m delighted for Embo, he’s been patient so all credit to him, still impacting games when he comes on.”
SUBS
“I can’t stress the importance of substitutions because the simple fact is, I say to the lads ‘although it may not be your time to shine on the pitch at this moment in time, your moment will come.’ Especially for the younger lads. Young Jay Matete got an opportunity today coning back into the team, and certainly Embo’s making it hard for me not to play him. He’s impacting games, he’s having a good influence. Listen, we all know at this stage of the season the last thing you want to do is come away and say ‘we played well, we didn’t win’. The fact is we got the points, because in a week’s time, nobody talks about performance. They don’t care.”
PATTERSON/DEFENCE
“That’s one of his key strengths. He’s a good shot stopper and he gets across his goal great to deny that one. I could see the way the game was drifting, they were going to start bombarding our box with long balls and we needed that height, size and presence to then go and deal with that. I think Broady as well we need to protect. I think we could see how dangerous he was today, and the last thing I want to do is play him for long spells and lose him again. That was more a protective one for him, but also a protective one from our point of view- the way I could see them scoring a goal was through a set play, whether that be a ricochet or a one straight into the box like the one they did score. We needed to go up against that.”
PRITCHARD
“He just wasn’t quite ready. I’ve worked with Al before, and when he says to you, he’s not feeling quite right, there’s normally something there- and there was. There was a slight nick in his calf which wasn’t quite right but hopefully he should be okay for the next one.”
FANS
“I’ve said it all along, there’s going to be moments where we think we’re out of it and there’s going to be moments where we think we’ve done it. That’s all going to happen and I asked the fans the other day to stick with us. I thought again today they were terrific, because the first half might have been a bit tough to watch, although I thought we were threatening. I thought we were really threatening but just didn’t have control of the game, and it was much better in the second half. So, as I say, really pleased to send them home happy.”
