Boss hopes Black Cats will be lucky
Apr 13 2009 By Stuart Rayner, The Journal
Sunderland should perhaps have seen it coming after being forced to abandon some of their set-piece work on Wednesday because of high winds at the Academy of Light. Sbragia though felt the greater efforts of his front two encouraged a noisy Stadium of Light.
"The crowd were excellent and we will need them when we play Hull," he said.
"When we are committed they really respond. Our commitment was better against Man United.
"We made some good tackles and some good decisions and that’s what the crowd want.
"The front two set the ball rolling with their work-rate but unfortunately we didn’t get anything for it.
"We knew they would have a lot of the ball and you hope you might get a bit of luck but they keep doing the same things, the right things throughout the game, and believe that eventually they will wear you down and get the goal.
"That’s down to mental toughness as well.
"We need to win games. The three points makes a massive difference and goals against will count as well in the final equation."
Perhaps because they felt they had nothing to lose, Sunderland were more positive than they have been recently against a Manchester United side whose defensive vulnerability is becoming increasingly apparent. Kenwyne Jones capitalised with his first goal since February 7 to cancel out Paul Scholes’ header.
"We started with Carlos Edwards to give us a bit more width and try to see if we could to get behind the full- backs," Sbragia explained.
"Perhaps over the last five or six games our wide men haven’t really done that.
"Carlos is an out-and-out winger who caused them some problems in the first half. We tried to deliver as early as we could, we felt maybe it would benefit Kenwyne and Djibril (Cisse) more.
"It was 2-1, which was unfair, but sometimes nothing in life seems fair. We thought we deserved something but we lost 2-1.
"We can look at the positives regarding what we have done as a team. In general I was really happy with the commitment we showed."
