Echo writers react to Sunderland's 3-1 win over Birmingham City

Transcript

00:00 Hello, James Copley and Phil Smith here. Sunderland have just beat Birmingham City 3-1 at the

00:06 East End of the Flight in the Championship. Phil, lots to discuss. In the warm-up Dennis

00:10 Sergen pulled up, he was replaced by Nectar Triannis. What's the latest with him?

00:14 Yeah, we just spoke to Mowbray there. Sergen actually felt his hamstring in training yesterday.

00:17 That's obviously the one that kept him out for over a month and he's only just been coming

00:20 back from that. He actually felt okay this morning which is why he was in the team but

00:24 then he was experiencing it again in the warm-up so there's obviously an issue there. Mowbray

00:29 did say that it sounded more like it was discomfort rather than an actual major issue so he's

00:33 going for a scan tomorrow. I think there's some hope that it's just been precautionary

00:38 rather than something that's an obvious recurrence. So fingers crossed he'll be okay where Mowbray

00:42 was keen to stress how pleased he was with Sealdon. Triannis Ninjas actually talked about

00:46 Sealdon didn't he and said that he might not always play centre half. He actually thinks

00:50 he can do it for a Hulme role, playing it right back and rolling into midfield and sort

00:54 of using the ball as we see Hulme do. In the end I think it worked out well for Sunderland

00:58 to an extent because those players have got valuable experience but Serfin's such a good

01:01 player and he's been so unlucky and he's just desperately hoping that scan's not serious.

01:05 No absolutely. We were just speaking to Hector Triannis there. Obviously our colleague John

01:09 Nicholson was with him just a second ago and I was listening to the conversation. He was

01:13 a lot more upbeat than he was the last time I spoke to him which was Hartlepool in pre-season.

01:16 This was a long time ago. Which he started and Sunderland lost 5-1 or whatever it was.

01:21 How did you rate Sealdon and Triannis? Obviously tough at times as you'd expect from a new

01:25 centre-back pairing but I thought actually to the credit Hulme and Huggins really dragged

01:29 them through that. I don't want to take anything away from Hulme but we know how good he is

01:33 so it's not a surprise. Huggins again, both parts of this game, tackling and defending

01:36 was outstanding. What a season he's having. It's the story of the season for me from a

01:40 Sunderland perspective. Not just the fact that he's playing regularly but the level

01:43 he's reached. They really were a huge help for Triannis and Sealdon. It's a big game

01:48 for both them because although I think at times Birmingham caused them problems as you'd

01:52 expect, I think that both of them have shown that they can be trusted and maybe in future

01:57 you won't see Mowbray kind of put full-backs in the centre-half. I think he feels he can

02:01 trust them now. Mowbray perhaps has a bit of a selection dilemma now because Adil Ashoush

02:06 has looked absolutely superb the couple of times he's played. He's got a golden day.

02:10 Mowbray's season was more of an attacking midfielder but then he name-checked that he

02:14 would have to come in for somebody like Job and Roberts who are very productive in the

02:18 Sunderland team. Not a bad dilemma to have though. No, definitely not. Mowbray's actually

02:22 told us that Ashoush was going to play against Leicester. He was going to start that game

02:25 but he didn't purely because he picked up that level injury. So I think it's only a

02:28 matter of time for him. I'm not saying he'll have a bad game yet. Every time he comes off

02:31 the bench he creates a chance or he gets one and today he got that goal. We're going to

02:35 see him start next month. I'm absolutely convinced of that.