Tony Mowbray says Sunderland will have to employ the 'dark arts' to offset Luton Town's set-piece advantage - or, better still, avoid conceding them at all. The Black Cats take on the Hatters in the Championship play-off semi-final, with the first leg taking place at the Stadium of Light tomorrow tea-time.
Sunderland go into the game without any fit specialist centre-backs, having lost Danny Batth, Dan Ballard, and Aji Alese to injury during the second half of the season. Batth, Ballard, and Alese are all 6ft-plus, as is fellow injury victim Ross Stewart, and that leaves them with midfielder Pierre Ekwah as their only fit six-footer to face a Luton team packed with tall, powerful, players.
Over the course of the season, it is no surprise that 22 percent of Luton's goals have come from set-pieces, while just 11 percent of Sunderland's goals have come via that method. Mowbray and his staff have been working ways to make up for that height deficit, and one method is to restrict to a minimum the set-piece opportunities they allow their opponents - a strategy that worked a treat in the 3-0 win at Preston on Monday, where Sunderland conceded just two corners and one free-kick throughout the entire 90 minutes against the Lillywhites.
