“Our poorest game” – James Clark post-match: Team Sunderland 2-1 Huddersfield
Team Sunderland manager, James Clark, spoke to SportsByte following his team’s 2-1 victory against Huddersfield in the cup.
Goals from George Pinder and Simon Jakab gave Sunderland the win, with a man of the match performance from Joe Jackson taking plaudits that afternoon.
And although Sunderland made it to the quarter final of the cup, Clark believes it was actually the team’s poorest performance of the campaign.
Clark said: “I’m delighted to be in the next round of the cup, first and foremost.
“I thought it was probably our poorest game today, in terms of the way we played. But we’ve dug it out and got the result so, got to be happy with that.”
In terms of what made the game its poorest, Clark thought that the team became wasteful and didn’t deal with Huddersfield’s threats well enough for his liking.
“I think we could have been two or three up in the first 10 minutes,” Clark added.
“And we started executing the plan really, really well and we got a little frustrated by ourselves.
“We dropped off in areas, we didn’t deal with our centre forward who was tremendous all game.
A change in plan at half-time offered Sunderland a more confident second half even if goals dried up beyond the first half.
Clark added: “We changed at half-time, we changed it so what was happening was going to the centre forward’s feet. He was spinning, getting players into the game.
“We streamed it off so we had to go and be clever and start moving it to other areas. And they didn’t quite work that out.
“So I was pleased from that perspective that the plan worked.”
And with silverware firmly in sight, Clark believes his side can go all the way.
“I’ve got to be confident that we can. We’ve got to play a bit better than that, that’s for sure. We’re in the quarter finals now and it’s three steps to go.”
Team Sunderland beat Leeds Beckett 4-1 on December 1 after this game at Ford Quarry thanks to goals braces from Pinder and Matthew Konstantinou. Charis Saitikis took the man of the match award.
The team will be in action away to Sheffield on December 8 in the league, hoping to make it six wins from six domestically.
