Dan Neil reflected on Sunderland's 0-0 draw with Swansea City. Whilst admitting it's a frustrating result, Dan acknowledged that there were positives to take and we probably won't have to break down teams with 10 men every week.
STARTED BRILLIANTLY
“I thought for 30 minutes before the sending off we were brilliant, we were cutting them apart and played the gameplan exactly how we wanted to. Obviously when they went down to ten men the game changed, they put everyone behind the ball. It’s tough to break ten men down as mad as it sounds, and today we couldn’t find a way to put one in the back of the net.”
BREAKING TEAMS DOWN
“I think we need to keep working on how to score goals when teams are camped in. It happens a lot to us and the type of football we play, we generally pin teams in. Although most of the time we’ve been good for a goal, it seems that in these scenarios we can’t get one over the line."
PATTO PEN SAVE
To be fair we got a little bit lucky as well, we knew they were dangerous from set plays. I didn’t really see what happened but obviously we’ve given a pen away. All the thanks go to Patto because he’s came in clutch there and kept us in the game. But up the other end it just didn’t seem to click.”
POSITIVES TO TAKE
“Definitely positives to take because every week we’re going to come up against 11 most of the time. I thought against 11 men our press was fantastic, they couldn’t get out their own half. Our build up play was really good, we dominated in and out of possession. We still had a few decent chances - I had one where it’s been cut back to me and I haven’t made a clean contact, Naz has got one where he’s running through on goal, and on another day they go in the back of the net for us. Unfortunately today they didn’t and it’s something we need to work on.”
ONTO BIRMINGHAM
“It’s the last one before the international break so it’ll be nice to come away with three points from that one before a two-week break, and we just need to recover for the next one or two days then train hard and hopefully come away with three points next week.”
