Joe Nicholson reacts as Sunderland are knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Crewe on penalties
Category
đŸ¥‡
SportsTranscript
00:00 Outside the stadium of light where Sunderland have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup,
00:06 losing on penalties to League Two side Crewe, another disappointing night for Tony Mowbray's
00:11 side after the Black Cats boss made 10 changes to his team following Sunday's defeat in the
00:17 championship against Ipswich. Dan Neal was the only player to keep his place and it once
00:22 again really showed the lack of depth in certain areas really for Sunderland who had more of
00:27 the ball for large parts of the game against a Crewe side which were playing with five
00:32 at the back and were trying to hit Sunderland on the break but it was the visitors who took
00:36 the lead on the stroke of half time from a header from defender Luke Ofton and Sunderland
00:41 trailing at the break. It did improve in the second half when Mowbray brought on players
00:46 like Jack Clark and Bradley Datt came on and made his debut. They both looked bright and
00:53 Sunderland managed to get an equaliser through Chris Rigg, the 16-year-old who was making
00:58 his first senior start for Sunderland tonight. It was a good finish from him in the 64th
01:03 minute to get the score back to 1-1 and then Sunderland were pushing for a winner but weren't
01:08 able to get that goal. The game then went straight to penalties and Pierre Equart was
01:14 the only player to miss. He came off the bench in the second half as well. Crewe emphatically
01:19 converted all five of their spot kicks and Equart's miss meaning Sunderland go out. Tony
01:24 Mowbray has just been in for his post-match press conference and was delayed coming into
01:29 press. He had been having a meeting with Christian Speakman about trying to sign more strikers
01:35 at the top end of the pitch. Stuartson Bennett was up front for Sunderland again tonight
01:39 with Hemaire rested following his appearance against Ipswich. So that really again showed
01:45 the lack of strike options that Mowbray has at his disposal with Ross Stewart still out
01:50 injured. Sunderland have got bids on the table for strikers and obviously that meeting today
01:55 between Mowbray and Speakman looks like there's progress being made on that front but again
02:01 tonight it kind of showed the lack of options that Sunderland have in certain positions,
02:05 particularly up front as also in central midfield where Neil and Equart played 45 minutes each.
02:12 Both of them obviously played the game against Ipswich on Sunday and Mowbray feeling that
02:16 he didn't really have any other options to put in there alongside Chris Rigg that could
02:20 compete even with a League 2 oppositioning crew tonight. So another disappointing night
02:26 for Sunderland out of the Carabao Cup and they'll now prepare for Saturday's away game
02:31 against Preston in the Championship and you can find all the build-ups of that game over
02:36 on the SFC section of the Sunderland Echo website.