Manager Keith Hill on his side’s 4-1 defeat to Sunderland at the Stadium of Light…
“The lads have worked so hard and then undid all the hard work. But it’s a true reflection of the game and the lack of mental consistency that you need as an individual or a group of players to consistently turn out positive results, and that’s the big difference between the two sides,” said Hill in his post-match interview.
“The mental ability of someone like Lee Cattermole – it’s not seen, but it’s obvious from my point of view. He can control a game mentally, and that’s his experience.
“We shot ourselves in the foot so I’m disappointed, but I hope it’s a learning curve for the players. It’s trying to salvage something in the second half and I’m putting substitutions on to try and change it. We had the first opportunity of the half and there’s a great save from the goalkeeper, but we never really got going.
“To be honest, Sunderland played at probably 80% and won 4-1, and that’s annoying from my perspective because I expect us to be better than that. I expect us to be better than a little bit of self-implosion, because for 37 minutes we were reasonably happy. We had one or two opportunities and I wasn’t overly concerned but then the concern is the self-implosion individually and sometimes collectively, and today it was individually. You’ve got to deal with the ball and you’ve got to deal with the strikers better. You can’t really [forgive] but I have to forgive central defenders for not marking a striker on a simple cross that comes into the box.”
He continued: “We weren’t here to make up the numbers – we were here to try and win this game, and I’m bitterly disappointed that we competed so well and then self-imploded. We could have turned the crowd against them [the opposition], but we supported Sunderland in being so charitable - we were so charitable that it was almost like Christmas. That’s something we have to deal with. It might be some hard miles from the players in that we might have to experience this again, but hopefully they’ll learn and educate themselves.
“I’m really pleased that our supporters turned up. When you consider our home gate was 2500 last week, 1252 today is a magnificent effort. It’s just a shame that we didn’t give them what they wanted.
“They’ve travelled up and down the country with us. It’s nice to celebrate with your own supporters when we’ve been successful away from home but there’s no celebration today. There’s a lot of contemplating, and I hope the players contemplate as much about their performances as much as I do.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.