What Mowbray assessed in dressing room before Huddersfield & verdict on what followed

Sunderland head coach Tony Mowbray (Image: Ian Horrocks)

TONY Mowbray felt Sunderland paid the price for a lack of intensity in their defeat to Huddersfield Town – and was again left frustrated after his side fired another blank in front of goal.

The Black Cats had 74% of possession and more than twice as many shots on goal as the visitors but couldn’t make the most of their dominance and conceded two soft goals, the second of which Mowbray described as “ridiculous”.

Mowbray didn’t question the effort of his players but said Sunderland were short of ideas in attack.

Having missed training on Tuesday due to illness, Mowbray said he also tried to get a feel for the “mood” in the dressing room before the game in the hope that his players weren’t underestimating the challenge with Huddersfield having arrived on Wearside having only won one of their previous 11 games.

“Huddersfield Town at home, we should be winning, the fans expect that and we expect that,” said Mowbray.

“I wasn’t here yesterday but I was trying to feel the mood before the game. If there’s a team you think you should be beating you have to have heightened adrenaline and make it happen, don’t just think it will happen.

“I felt we lacked a bit of intensity really to drive home our superiority. If you’re even five percent off your maximum you can get hurt. We have to take it on the chin and congratulate them.”

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Luke O’Nien cancelled out Michal Helik’s early opener for Huddersfield but the visitors struck a winner against the run of play at the midway point of the second half through Delano Burgzorg.

Mowbray added: “I was disappointed with the performance. We lacked a bit of energy tonight and creativity breaking down their defence.

“We knew how they play and what they were going to do. I was frustrated with the performance.

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“It’s not the first time we’ve faced a team who put a lot of men behind the ball and it’s not the first time we’ve struggled to break them down and score goals. We just have to keep working. It’s a frustrating night for us.

“I’m disappointed with the goals we lost of course, a set-play and a ridiculous second goal. But no excuses, they came, made life difficult for us and got the points.

“Every game is different. Plymouth were trying to win the game and we managed to dominate them. Tonight Huddersfield came to stifle and yet scored from a set-play and made life really difficult for us.

“It wasn’t a day when we had to show huge amount of effort, we had to show creativity and guile but we lacked that. It wasn’t a day to talk about effort, it was a day to talk about how we were going to score against this team.”