Swansea boss Russell Martin praised Sunderland after his side's victory in South Wales - and singled out his former teammate Alex Pritchard as a key man for the Black Cats. Martin's side won 2-1 at the Swansea.com Stadium yesterday, with both their goals coming in the first half before Jack Clarke pulled one back for the Wearsiders shortly after the break.
It was a result that ended Sunderland's four-game unbeaten run, and which inflicted their first defeat in over a month. But Martin was impressed with what he saw, and said they will be tricky opponents for a lot of Championship sides.
And he also paid tribute to Pritchard, who played alongside him at Norwich City - some of the time under ex-Sunderland boss Alex Neil. "They are really good team, by the way, I really like them, Sunderland, and the way they play," said Martin.
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"Alex Pritchard - I didn't enjoy watching him today but I've played with him and he is an excellent player. They've got some really good players and they will cause a lot of teams problems this year, with the energy they have."
Swansea were by far the better side in the first half, but Martin said his side's long trips to West Bromwich Albion last weekend and then to Watford on Wednesday night eventually caught up with them, and as they tired Sunderland came into the game.
He said: "We started the game with brilliant energy, so aggressive, we could maybe have scored one or two more but the goalkeeper made a couple of brilliant saves, we looked a threat, but we just couldn't sustain that energy and they started creeping in in the last 15 minutes of the first half.
"They [Sunderland] played on Tuesday and flew down yesterday, which is very different - we spent a long, long, time on the bus this week. We got back to the stadium here on Thursday morning at 3.30am, and with a really young group that's not easy.
"That showed for sure, so the second half was a bit more painful. I don't think we're overly-satisfied with the performance apart from the first half-an-hour, but we've been here so many times this season where we've been really satisfied with the performance but the result hasn't reflected that, that it's nice to be happy about the result and the performance this time.
"We still had some openings in the second half, we showed more courage and intensity, but we couldn't quite kill the game off. Their goalkeeper made more saves than Steven [Benda] and they had a lot more of the ball in the second half."
Clarke's goal meant Sunderland had a chance of forcing an equaliser in the second half, but ultimately Swansea saw the game out to claim a fourth successive Championship win - and their third in the space of a week. Martin said: "The goal was a really poor one to concede and I'm really annoyed about that, and I think the players will be as well when we watch it back.
"But we've won four games in a row in this league, with a young group as well, and after the start we had that is no mean feat, and I'm really proud of them for that. I'm immensely proud of the players, the staff, the fans, who have travelled this week.
"To get the three wins is an incredible return. If anyone had said at the start of the week we'd get nine points ... I think we're the only people that would believe we were capable of that."
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