‘Ridiculous’ defending’s a frustration for manager

Sunderland boss Chris Coleman slammed his team’s defending after they gifted a ‘ridiculous’ goal to Preston North End.

Neither side had taken control of the game in the first period on Saturday, but Preston were ahead just minutes into the second half as Sean Maguire stooped to head home a Paul Gallagher free-kick.

Maguire was one of two players left unmarked at the back post.

A despondent Coleman (pictured) admitted he was saying the same thing every week and that the team would never get away from trouble if they keep making the same

He said: “There’s nothing new I can tell you – same mistakes, same theme.

“I keep saying the same things every week. The first 45 minutes is OK, but after that we give away a ridiculous goal, the kind of goal that we don’t get from opposition.

“We work on set-plays, but we don’t mark and you get punished. We’re only one win away from changing it round, but you’d write us off because we keep making mistakes and we’re not rising to the challenge.

“We change formation and personnel, but we don’t seem to be hitting the mark.

“The best thing for us is this two-week break, in terms of the pressure being off next weekend.

“We wanted to go into the break on a positive note on the back of a result, but it’s the opposite of that.

“We’re never going to get away from where we are if we play like that. You have to keep focus at this level, if not you’ll get punished. You don’t get away with it. We’ve tried a lot of different things.

“We’re up against it here before we’ve kicked a ball, it’s been like that for a couple of years and that’s self induced but the fans clapped us off at half time.”

Coleman admitted that he will need to use the international break to try something different with his ailing squad. He said: “We’re going to have to take our medicine.

“We’ve lost again in a poor manner. It’s mindset, simple as that, mindset.” mistakes.