Reaction as Jack Clarke inspires Sunderland to 3-1 Norwich City win
Reaction as Jack Clarke inspires Sunderland to 3-1 Norwich City win
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00:38 Hello and welcome to the broadcast brought to you by the Sunderland Echo.
00:43 My name is Joe Nicholson and I'm joined by my colleagues Phil Smith and
00:47 James Copley.
00:48 We're going to be reflecting on Sunderland's 3-1 win over Norwich City
00:53 at the Stadium of Light.
00:54 Tony Mowbray's side had to come from behind with goals from Tri Hulme,
00:59 Dan Neal and Jack Clark giving them all three points.
01:03 So we'll start with you Phil.
01:06 Sunderland ended a three-game losing run with this win over Norwich and
01:12 reflecting back to just under a month ago, they were playing well.
01:15 They'd won five of their last six games, but
01:18 then they'd come into this sticky run of form.
01:21 Dan Neal's red card against Middlesbrough, then went away to Stoke and
01:24 lost, and then lost against league leaders Leicester.
01:27 So just how important was this win against Norwich on Saturday?
01:32 I think it was important to sort of change the mood a little bit.
01:36 But to be fair, I don't even feel the performances has really changed that
01:39 much during the three-game losing run compared to the sort of weeks beforehand.
01:44 If you take the three games in that context, the Middlesbrough game,
01:48 after a bit of an indifference start and were probably in the ascendancy at the
01:52 point at which Dan Neal gets sent off.
01:55 The Stoke game, I thought it was very harsh to lose that game and Leicester,
01:59 in a lot of ways, is one of the best performances of the season, really.
02:03 When you put into context the form that Leicester were in,
02:07 their position in the table, their budget,
02:10 all Sunderland really did was miss their chances, to be honest.
02:14 But I think what was pretty obvious coming away from that game,
02:17 not just after the Norwich game, but before it, listening to Tony Mobray and
02:21 you yourself speaking to Dan Neal afterwards, that the players took an awful
02:24 lot of belief from that game.
02:25 It reminded me a little bit of after the Fulham game at Craven Cottage in
02:29 the FA Cup earlier this year, where Sunderland didn't actually win.
02:32 But the staff and the players talked about it a lot in the months afterwards,
02:36 as it really gave them that conviction that they were on the right track,
02:39 because they'd not just competed with the Premier League team,
02:41 but they'd done so playing that sort of really aggressive style.
02:44 So I think it was an important win, as you say,
02:49 because in terms of stopping the right results,
02:52 but I don't think there was actually a huge amount different, really.
02:56 I think they played against a poorer opposition.
02:58 I think that's fairly obvious.
02:59 And I suppose football's won and lost in both boxes.
03:02 I think generally speaking, Sunderland were the same sort of positive,
03:05 aggressive, front foot team on Saturdays that had been in previous weeks.
03:09 They just put their chances away.
03:11 And of course, the second goal, Jack Clarke's passed to Dan Neal,
03:14 is one of the best of the season so far, really.
03:17 So I think it was an important win for everybody.
03:19 But I have to say that I do feel like the performance level was pretty much
03:24 where it's been, actually.
03:25 And it's just those fine margins in football, isn't it?
03:30 We have seen, James, previously, teams have come to the Stadium of Light,
03:33 have sat quite deep, and Norwich were sitting quite deep,
03:36 although they've got one of the, I think, the worst defensive record in the Championship.
03:40 But they were kind of putting men behind the ball,
03:43 and they wanted to hit Sunderland on the counter-attack.
03:45 And when they got a goal lead, I'm sure some fans would have thought,
03:49 'Here we go again. It's going to be a difficult afternoon.'
03:51 But how much credit does Sunderland deserve for getting back ahead
03:54 before half-time and then seeing it out to get the three points?
03:59 They do deserve a lot of credit.
04:01 I think the conviction by the playing staff and the coaching staff
04:05 to not panic despite having lost three games, as Phil says.
04:09 The performances haven't been too bad, really, by and large.
04:12 Obviously, there's always things you can improve.
04:15 There's been a lot of controversy about refereeing decisions.
04:18 But naturally, with three losses comes some external pressure,
04:21 some outside noise.
04:23 Sunderland's record at the Stadium of Light wasn't all that good last season.
04:27 So, to go behind against Norwich, who I think hadn't won in four coming into it,
04:31 obviously that's now moved to five, was a worry.
04:36 It was very much against the run of play.
04:37 I thought Sunderland largely dominated those opening exchanges and just didn't score.
04:42 But then Norwich get the sucker punch, and you do feel, 'Oh, no, here we go.'
04:48 But I think everybody in that stadium, really, bar the Norwich City fans,
04:52 Sunderland players and Sunderland fans actually just stuck with it.
04:57 I didn't feel that much angst from Sunderland fans.
05:01 Yes, they were disappointed, but there seemed to be a recognition that,
05:04 'Hang on, we are the better team here.'
05:06 Perhaps that was partly also because of the questionable refereeing decision
05:11 around that Norwich City goal is the offside, isn't the offside,
05:14 is he interfering with play, all of that sort of stuff.
05:17 So, that sort of contributed to the injustice.
05:19 But the stats paint the picture as well.
05:24 Just got them here.
05:25 Sunderland had 17 shots the whole game to Norwich's nine,
05:29 and Sunderland had nine shots on target to Norwich's two,
05:32 63% possession to 37% that always looked like they were going to win the game
05:39 once they took the lead, even when they equalised.
05:41 I thought, 'Right, here we go.'
05:44 A really excellent turnaround.
05:46 I think there's still some questions tactically,
05:50 especially up front about team cohesion.
05:53 And perhaps we'll talk about that shortly.
05:55 But I think the question for me around this team still is,
06:01 if a Jack Clark or a Patrick Roberts isn't firing,
06:03 or if a full-back can't get in on the action,
06:05 or if we can't get a goal from midfield,
06:07 then do we have a championship-quality centre-forward
06:11 who can really make the difference?
06:13 Now, I think that remains to be seen.
06:15 Hopefully, one of the four we've got develops.
06:17 And obviously, Royston had a really good game,
06:20 a really positive game.
06:21 So, yes, there's a lot to go up.
06:23 But I think a very, very important win for Tony Mowbray as well,
06:27 because you don't get a result against Norwich who are in bad form,
06:31 and suddenly people start to concentrate on the results
06:35 rather than the performances,
06:36 and rightly so, because it's a results business at the end of the day.
06:38 But, yes, good to get back to winning ways, definitely.
06:41 When you mentioned Jack Clark there,
06:43 another goal for him from the penalty spot,
06:46 and he was excellent again on Saturday, wasn't he,
06:48 Phil, with that goal and just with the driving runs
06:52 that he produces down the left-hand side.
06:54 But as James mentioned there, Sunderland,
06:55 maybe in the last few games,
06:56 have looked like they've been a bit reliant on Clark.
06:58 He has kind of stepped up.
06:59 He's got nine goals now this season,
07:01 which I think is as much as he scored last season in the league already.
07:05 But just how impressive was him and was he,
07:07 and how reliant do you think Sunderland are on Clark at the minute?
07:12 Yes, I think probably, yes, a little bit too reliant.
07:15 I think that is a fair comment at the moment,
07:17 having said that, if you've got a player with the qualities
07:20 that he has, with the consistencies he's at,
07:22 then why wouldn't you rely on him?
07:24 Do you know what I mean?
07:24 Because I think it's kind of one of the worst clichés in football,
07:28 isn't it, that wingers are inconsistent
07:30 and you can't expect them to be at it every week.
07:32 And actually, Clark's kind of proven that wrong,
07:35 as Ahmad did to an extent last year
07:37 when his goal contributions were pretty much won every game.
07:41 I do think that what he's doing this season is remarkable.
07:44 And I think Saturday was pretty much a classic example of that, really,
07:48 where Norwich doubled up on him.
07:50 I mean, Fasnacht was in the team pretty much purely,
07:52 I think, to double up with a young right back
07:54 and try and defend Clark.
07:55 And they don't really seem to have the ideas to stop him.
07:58 And I think what's so impressive about Clark is,
08:00 if you look back to when he first arrived on his initial loan spell,
08:04 I think he was a fairly one-dimensional player.
08:08 He would pick up the ball and he would cut inside
08:09 and he would drive until he was stopped.
08:11 And he was pretty effective at it.
08:13 But now you can see he can score goals at the back post
08:16 and he can take players down the outside as well
08:18 and cut the ball back on his left foot,
08:20 as he did for that famous Patrick Roberts goal,
08:22 something that he's just developed more and more.
08:24 I think he's playing at as high a level as anybody in the Championship right now.
08:30 And so, yes, some of them probably are reliant on him.
08:32 But I think when you've got a player in that form and that quality,
08:34 I think that's just a natural process.
08:35 I think you're always going to want to get the ball to him whenever you can.
08:38 And I think James is right in what he says about,
08:41 I think one of the impressive things this season
08:43 is something that Mowbray was really worried about in the summer.
08:46 He said it quite a lot, actually, to get into the playoffs and he had 70 goals.
08:50 Where were those goals going to come from with Noah Ahmad?
08:54 At that time, we didn't know what was going to happen with Ross Stewart.
08:57 And I think what we have seen is actually,
09:00 across the squad, it's been pretty good.
09:01 Dan Neal's got three goals now, hasn't he?
09:03 And Pierre Equa has got two.
09:05 You've got players chipping in.
09:07 But that centre-forward, I think, is a little bit of a worry.
09:09 Because although some of them have kind of adapted to almost play without one,
09:14 I think you do feel like they're a little bit reliant on Clark's goal-scoring output at the moment.
09:19 I think the decision to go with Rooson on Saturday sort of reflected that,
09:23 because I think Mowbray has spoken a lot about Mason Birstow
09:27 and saying how impressed he's been with his athleticism, his off-the-ball work.
09:30 But I think we could all see that he wasn't getting a huge amount of chances
09:35 and he hasn't particularly looked like scoring.
09:37 And I think Mowbray felt at the time it was right to go with Rooson.
09:41 And actually, I do think that Rooson did well.
09:43 He got into good areas.
09:44 He pressed really well.
09:46 And I expect he'll probably get a chance again on Saturday to play against Swansea.
09:50 I think it's going to be really important that someone up front steps up.
09:54 I do think this team have shown that it's not all about strikers.
09:56 And there are different ways to play.
09:58 And there are different ways to score goals other than having your classic number nine.
10:01 But I do think when you look at the goal-scoring charts,
10:05 there's a little bit of a concern that Clark is so out in front on his own.
10:08 And I definitely think that's a big focus over the next few weeks is to try and
10:12 get some continuity and get some goals from the front line.
10:14 It looks like Rooson is very much next in line to get that opportunity as Birstow did.
10:19 Yeah, I didn't realise just watching Dan Neal go back just how good Clark's kind of footwork was
10:26 to kind of beat a couple of Norwich players and then set up Neal.
10:29 And what also was interesting was Rooson's run, which kind of opened up that space for
10:34 Neal to kind of break through into the midfield and then dink the ball over the goalkeeper.
10:38 But Phil mentioned it there, James Rooson came in to the side for his first senior start for Sunderland.
10:44 Didn't receive too many clear-cut chances, but how do you think he did?
10:48 And how would you assess his performance?
10:50 I was really impressed.
10:52 Obviously, he's in the team to score goals.
10:55 That's his primary job.
10:56 And he didn't manage to do that.
10:57 But I thought his all-round game was good.
11:01 He didn't really have sort of a number 10 playing really close to him.
11:03 I thought Bellenham was a lot deeper.
11:05 So, in that regard, he was sort of feeding on scraps in a way.
11:10 I think what we've seen at Sunderland over the years in terms of strikers is that if you're not
11:16 scoring, I'm thinking back to Ellis Sims here, who I was a massive fan of, but you've got to
11:21 sort of show that willing, sort of running and willingness to work.
11:25 You know, the perception of Ellis Sims was that when he wasn't scoring, sometimes he wasn't making
11:32 those sort of darting runs like Ross Stewart, but it just wasn't his game.
11:35 There were different plays.
11:36 However, I think with Roosan, he did make sort of not Ross Stewart-esque runs, because obviously
11:44 Ross Stewart's a bit of a different animal in the Championship, but there was that willingness
11:47 to work.
11:48 He was sort of making the diagonal runs.
11:49 He was cutting in behind.
11:51 And I think that the work rate was impressive, really, considering he didn't really get too
11:57 many chances.
11:57 But as you say, for Dan Neal's goal, the run to sort of to draw the defender away was impressive.
12:05 You know, he's coming in to a new country.
12:09 Mowbray's admitted that he doesn't fully know the language.
12:11 Hopefully that comes soon.
12:13 It's a slightly different case, I suppose, a little bit to sort of Maienda, Hemia and
12:20 Berstow in a sense that he is slightly older.
12:22 Obviously, he lacks experience like the other two as well, but perhaps he's got that little bit
12:26 more maturity and a little bit more experience in football generally that he could be the
12:30 option going forward.
12:31 But it's his first 90 minutes, so it would be good to see him back in against Swansea,
12:36 which I suspect he will be, as Phil mentions.
12:38 Hopefully he can get a run.
12:39 Hopefully he can pick up a goal, because it's all about confidence, really.
12:44 When Hemia came on Joe towards the end and he had that chance at the end of the game
12:50 and he just snatched it and it went over the bar, I was gutted at that because you just
12:54 you want a Sunderland striker to put the hand up really and get on the score sheet.
12:59 I think the frustration is from fans, it's almost a minor one really in a sense that we can
13:10 see how much of a decent team and outfit this is.
13:13 It's very well coached.
13:14 There's Neil and Ekwar in the middle who are really positive players.
13:18 You've got Clark and Roberts who on the day two are the best wingers in the league.
13:21 We've seen that consistently.
13:23 So if they could just get a goal scorer from the striking position, somebody in form and
13:30 somebody that fits, I think Sunderland then become a really, really interesting proposition,
13:35 which they are already to be fair, but they just need that little bit of magic as well.
13:40 Jack Clark's providing it.
13:41 He sort of stepped in providing that magic quality role that Ahmad did last season,
13:46 but you just sense that Sunderland just maybe need a tad more, despite the fact
13:51 that I think we'd all probably agree that in an all-round sense, they're probably a better
13:55 team than they were last year.
13:56 But I just think at the moment, they're missing that little bit of magic dust, despite winning
14:01 3-1.
14:02 But we didn't, I think being full of discussions on the pod before and you, Joe, that we didn't
14:08 really see that from Ahmad until December, that Birmingham City game before we went away for the
14:13 World Cup.
14:14 So hopefully new threats develop, but I think you've largely got to be positive really.
14:19 Hopefully, Roosan can put in another similar performance against Swansea and perhaps he'll
14:24 get more of a clear-cut chance this time.
14:25 And it's all about familiarity.
14:27 It's his first 90 minutes, new teammates and stuff like that.
14:30 So I'm fairly optimistic.
14:32 I suppose in recent weeks, the time, the side's been a little bit disjointed, hasn't it?
14:37 With Neil coming out with his suspension against Stoke, Equa's been out with an injury.
14:40 But do you think on Saturday, Phil, maybe Sirkin coming back in for Huggins that we
14:45 perhaps saw Sunderland's strongest side against Norwich on Saturday?
14:49 I think it's, yeah, I thought that Sirkin had a massive impact when he came on against
14:55 Leicester on, was it Tuesday night?
14:57 Yeah, I thought immediately, mainly just because of the balance of the side.
15:00 It's not really a slight on Huggins, but Sirkin's sort of natural left-footedness, his instinct
15:04 to sort of go outside.
15:05 I thought it added a real, you know, a really big dimension to Sunderland and was one of
15:10 the key reasons really why he almost got back into the game.
15:14 But I think that at this stage, I think it's actually quite a tight call because I think
15:18 what we're seeing with Niall Huggins is it was almost when he first came back from his
15:21 injury, he was almost understandably getting through games because I think that match fitness
15:26 wasn't there, match sharpness wasn't there.
15:29 But I actually think if you look at the last sort of three, four weeks, he's bringing a
15:32 lot in possession.
15:33 He looks a lot like Niall Huggins did when he first arrived at the club with those sort
15:38 of big driving runs further forward through the middle of the pitch, taking players out
15:43 of the occasion.
15:44 And his defensive work was really good again on Saturday.
15:46 I think we know that when Dennis Sirkin is fully fit and at his best, is he definitely
15:51 in this sort of strongest 11?
15:53 I think he probably is.
15:54 But I think at the moment, you've got a really good opportunity to sort of feed Sirkin back
15:58 in quite carefully.
16:00 And I think Huggins, you know, personally, I think probably deserves the opportunity to
16:03 continue for another couple of weeks.
16:05 And I think the positive side of it is it gives you that option on the other flank as
16:08 well because, you know, Trey Hewman has been exceptional and there's no doubt he is
16:13 absolutely in something strongest 11.
16:16 But with Timothy Pembele sort of taking longer than someone who'd hoped to get up to speed
16:20 and get up to full fitness, there's some really welcome depth now because Huggins, obviously,
16:25 if you play him on the right side, as we saw against Watford, he can bring you a real attack
16:28 outlet.
16:29 So I do sort of agree with you.
16:32 I think if you were starting from scratch without sort of background or context, I think
16:35 you would always call Sirkin in your team.
16:37 But I thought Huggins had another strong game on Saturday and I think it's a really good
16:41 option for Mowbray to be able to bring Sirkin on late on.
16:43 And that's going to be an interesting position to sort of throw forward as well because
16:48 obviously Adil Elissa is going to be back in two to three weeks.
16:50 Now, with him, it's going to be a bit of a long-term process, isn't it, because he hasn't
16:53 played much football for such a long time.
16:55 But what was a position where I think you were a bit worried about the depth is one
17:00 where actually you can start to see Mowbray's getting some real options.
17:03 And I think, you know, I think Huggins deserves a huge amount of credit because, like I say,
17:09 I think he's in that team on Saturday, probably on merit, really.
17:12 And that's credit to how he's done over the last few months.
17:14 We'll just stick with you quickly, Phil, while we're on injuries.
17:19 There was some talk before the game on Saturday that Elisa Mijenda could come back into the
17:24 squad. Mowbray saying that he wasn't fit enough to start, but he could be on the bench.
17:28 Wasn't part of the under-21 squad that played on Friday as well.
17:33 So what did Mowbray have to say about him after the game?
17:36 Yeah, I think Mijenda, he had a full training session, I think, on Thursday, but afterwards
17:41 just reported that he felt a little bit of discomfort in that hamstring, which is where
17:45 the injury obviously initially was after he moved.
17:47 Mowbray had been really clear in the press conference that although he would probably
17:52 be on the bench, you know, it was going to be a case of giving him five, ten minutes
17:55 at the end of the game if he wasn't ready, sort of match fitness-wise to play a substantial
17:59 role. So I think with that in mind, Mowbray just took the view that it wasn't worth the
18:02 risk. You know, if he was only going to be on the bench potentially for a five, ten-minute
18:07 cameo, you know, why risk him potentially aggravating that injury?
18:10 I think Mowbray is really excited about Mijenda. You can tell when he talks about him.
18:14 He thinks he's got something a bit different to add to the group. He's very versatile.
18:18 And he was very clear that, you know, it didn't quite happen for him on Saturday in
18:22 terms of getting on the bench and making his debut.
18:24 But it's definitely something that will happen soon. So if he's not in the squad for
18:27 Saturday's game at Swansea, I think we'll almost definitely see him in the squad for
18:31 that last game before the international break against Birmingham. And then I think moving
18:36 into that international break, you'll probably see him get some more under 21 minutes, whether
18:40 that's league games, whether it's behind closed doors games at the Academy of Light.
18:44 And then fingers crossed, I think at the end of this month when someone come back from
18:47 the next international break, I think we'll then hopefully be at the point where he can
18:50 really compete to be playing regularly and maybe even pushing for his first start.
18:54 Just quickly as well, I wanted to clear something up on Saturday about Norwich's opening goal,
19:00 where there was appeals for offside. Pierre Equart felt that, well, Gabriel Sarra, the
19:06 Norwich midfielder was offside. Pierre Equart let the ball go through to him. Sarra didn't
19:11 touch it. And then Norwich's fullback, Caelan Fisher, ran onto the ball. He wasn't offside
19:16 and then crossed for the goal scorer, Hwang.
19:20 There were some appeals afterwards, James, from the Sunderland players. We all thought
19:26 that Pierre Equart got books for his appeals. There were some suggestions that it was Dan
19:31 Ballard that got booked and that would have meant he received his fifth yellow card of
19:36 the season, which would have meant he had a one game suspension for the game against
19:40 Swansea next weekend. But you've had it confirmed what actually happened there.
19:43 Yes. So obviously, as I've just mentioned, Norwich scored. I think Pierre Equart and
19:51 Dan Ballard were appealing quite heavily to the referee. I think Ballard was next to Equart.
19:56 There was a yellow card shown. I think we all were of the opinion that it was shown
20:00 at Equart for dissent or something along those lines in the stadium. But I think, not to
20:06 dig anybody out here at all, but I think a lot of or most of the websites get their or
20:10 pull their information from Opta. So I think maybe somebody's mistaken that the yellow
20:17 card's gone to Dan Ballard when it hadn't. So obviously, all of the websites said Dan
20:22 Ballard had got yellow carded, including Flashscore and BBC, which we all use as well to double
20:27 check things. So went to the FA for a bit of clarification and they confirmed that it
20:32 was Equart and not Ballard. So Ballard will be available for Swansea if he is fit. Luke
20:37 O'Neill did pick up a yellow card, though, in that game against Norwich City. So that
20:42 means that Sunderland's two first choice centre backs are one game away from suspension,
20:46 each heading into Swansea City. So perhaps that return of Adgi Alisi would be timely
20:54 if they can get him up to speed. But as Phil said, it will be a long term sort of phasing
20:59 back in. So that leaves like Trent and Sealt. So definitely want to watch, I think, because
21:04 you know, there was a lot of talk about that partnership coming into the season, but they've
21:08 performed by and large pretty well, I would say. So, yeah, certainly definitely want to
21:12 keep an eye on.
21:15 We're just looking at the league table, Phil. Sunderland now up to seventh in the
21:19 championship table. We're recording this on Monday and West Brom are playing Coventry
21:23 on Monday night. So if West Brom do beat Coventry, they'd move back ahead of Sunderland. But
21:28 Mowbray said something quite interesting, I thought, in his pre-match press conference,
21:31 that they were only actually three points behind where Burnley were last season after
21:35 now 14 games. Burnley, of course, went on to win the championship with 101 points. But
21:42 do you think it's going to now this season take a higher points total to be in the top
21:47 six? You just look at Leicester at the top and to be fair to them, Ipswich as well, got
21:50 a bit of a gap at the bottom. You've got QPR struggling as well as Sheffield Wednesday,
21:55 although they got their first win over the weekend. Do you think it's going to take a
21:58 higher points total than it did last season?
22:00 Yeah, 100%. I mean, last year we all said at the time was, you know, an unusually low
22:06 number of points. If you look back to that final sort of two or three weeks before the
22:10 season ended, it was kind of incredible how teams like Millwall and Blackburn just persistently
22:16 failed to get the results. And so while Sunderland did brilliantly well, especially in that amazing
22:21 Preston performance, they were lucky. You know, they were. And that was one of the things
22:25 we talked about in pre-season was this, you know, we were concerned because we all said,
22:32 you know, Sunderland overachieved last year and they were fortunate to get in the top
22:34 six with the points they did. And there was a chance that in a stronger division, they
22:39 kind of matched what they did last year, but finished lower down the table and it would
22:42 be viewed as a failure. So that was always something I think we were aware of coming
22:45 into the season. I think, and one of the things that Mo Bray has been talking about, and I
22:50 think one of the reasons he referenced that statistic you mentioned about Burnley, Joe,
22:53 was that Sunderland's performances are clearly better than they were last year. And they
22:57 are very clearly better than they were this time last year. You know, we talked about
23:00 Ahmad, it wasn't really until after the international break that you saw Sunderland
23:03 really climb the table. And we began to talk about them as playoff contenders. Before then,
23:08 it was mostly about stabilising at the level, wasn't it? So I think that was the point he
23:12 was trying to make, that we are a long way ahead of where we were and we're a better
23:15 side than we were last year. And at the moment, I feel really confident they're going to get
23:20 more points than last season. But as you, I think rightly mentioned, that's no guarantee
23:25 that you're going to finish in the top six, because I do think we'll see a much sort of
23:29 more normal points haul required this year. But I have to say that I think, you know,
23:34 if you take away sort of the results and just look at the performances, I think this team
23:38 is a long way ahead of what it was last year, even accounting for that obvious sort of concern
23:42 that we've raised with the strike and issue. And I suppose Saturday was a bit of a vindication
23:47 for Mowbray, who was really bullish, wasn't he? And saying, you know, we've lost three
23:50 games, but we're still a good team. If we keep doing the right things, we're going to
23:54 win games. And we saw that sort of come to fruition on Saturday. So, yeah, I think I'm
23:59 very optimistic about this team. I think it will be better than what it did last year.
24:02 I just don't know where that will leave you in the table. That's the obvious. That's kind
24:06 of the big question, because it does look much stronger field this year, I think.
24:09 Well, just before we finish, James, it's Swansea away on Saturday. Do you expect a
24:15 similar Sunderland team to line up there at Swansea? And is there any potential changes
24:20 you think Mowbray could make? Yeah, I would by and large. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think
24:27 it will be probably man for man unchanged, to be honest. I think, you know, the only
24:31 real question, as we discussed earlier, would be Serkan in for Huggins at left-back
24:36 potentially. But has Huggins really done anything worthy of, you know, being dropped out
24:42 of that team? Probably not. I guess it's two-fold, isn't it? Because obviously Huggins
24:46 has had his injury issues, so they might not want to oversaturate him. But Dennis Serkan's
24:50 only just really come back into the fold the past two games. So do they want to throw him
24:54 in from the start? That's the only real change that I can envisage. Unless, of course,
24:58 there's been some freak Sunderland training ground injury in the week, which you just
25:04 never know with this club. But yeah, I think Roosan starts up front for me again. I like
25:08 the three of Ekweneal and Bellenham playing slightly deeper. Hopefully, maybe away from
25:12 home, one of those can break out and get closer to the striker. But yeah, I think it will
25:17 most likely be unchanged. But we'll have more build-up. I agree with that. I think the one...
25:21 Sorry, I was just going to say, I think one interesting question is just Job's sort of
25:27 game time, which I think at the moment is absolutely through the roof for his age.
25:33 I think obviously the thing with Job is he's not getting international breaks because he
25:37 goes away on international duty and he plays. I do wonder if at some point, even though I
25:43 think clearly he would be in all of our sort of strongest Sunderland XI at the moment,
25:46 because he's been absolutely brilliant all season, I do think at some point you're going
25:51 to have to rest this kid because this is still his first season of senior football. He's
25:55 playing like three times a week in the Championship and then going away and playing for England.
25:58 So, I think at some point it's really important that Sunderland give him a breather. I think
26:03 you have seen some signs of fatigue at times in the last couple of games. I'm not saying
26:06 necessarily this Saturday, but I think at some point there is a question, do you give
26:10 Rigg a go? I thought he was excellent. Or do you just bring Pritchard in with that experience
26:15 and let Job rest and come off the bench? It's not me saying that Job should be dropped because
26:21 I think he's been excellent. But I do think there's a question there over at what point
26:25 do you give Job a bit of a breather just to protect him for the rest of the season,
26:28 because he's already become such an important player.
26:31 I think it's a testament to Job as well that the lack of narrative around him now,
26:36 because when we signed him and when we saw him in pre-season, it was very much,
26:41 which positions are you going to play? We're not really sure what he is. He's very inexperienced.
26:45 We might have to play the long game. He's clearly got talent. And now, first part of the season,
26:50 he's a regular starter for Sunderland. He can play in midfield, he can play an attack in midfield.
26:55 And his stature now as a football player is well beyond the 18 years he's been on this planet.
27:01 I think we're probably guilty of maybe not giving him enough credit just
27:04 by virtue of how consistent he's been. It's phenomenal, really.
27:09 You forget that he's 18, don't you? You forget that he's still at a young age.
27:14 In my head, he's more minute this season than last season already.
27:20 In my head, he's not that much different to Dan Neal in stature, which is remarkable,
27:24 really, given Dan Neal's got three seasons ahead of him in terms of professional experience.
27:29 It's crazy.
27:29 Well, Dan Neal was saying that after the game, actually, how he felt that in his first season,
27:35 when he was a senior in League One, he did feel by January he'd kind of had that burnout. So,
27:40 Sunderland do have to be careful with Bellingham, that as well as he's played at the start of the
27:44 season, that they don't kind of overuse him. And as Phil mentioned there, they've got Pritchard
27:48 that could come in, Bradley Dac was back on the bench. They have got options that could
27:52 easily come in there, but we'll see what Tony Mowbray does for Saturday's game against Swansea.
27:57 You can find more build up to that game over on the SAFC section of the Sunderland Echo website,
28:03 which we have another podcast as well out before then, previewing that game. And Mowbray will be
28:08 speaking to the media later this week, so you can find all the latest Sunderland news
28:14 over on the website. So once again, thanks a lot for listening to the Raw podcast.