Manager praises fightback in defeat

TONY Mowbray praised the way his side ‘reacted to adversity’ after trailing 2-0 against Swansea City – even though Sunderland ultimately came up short.

The Black Cats were outplayed in the first half at the Swansea.com Stadium, and went in at the interval in all kinds of trouble after goals from Ollie Cooper and Harry Darling had put the Swans on course for victory.

But Mowbray rallied his troops at half-time and made one or two tweaks, most notably shifting Jack Clarke to a more central role, and it immediately paid off as Clarke halved the deficit.

Sunderland tried to force the equaliser but were unable to do so, although Mowbray insists he was pleased with the way his side performed in the second half.

“We know how they play, they overload midfield and play a box of four in there, and it was just whether we were going to change everything we’d been doing to match them up,” said Mowbray.

“Sometimes you do, but we wanted to give the team an opportunity to go and see if we could get on top of them and create the overload in the wide areas with a full-back and a wide attacker where they only had a wingback.

“We wanted to see if we could come out on top, but ultimately they came out on top in the first half and played through us too comfortably in the middle, they always got their spare man on the ball and pushed us back.”

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