Tony Mowbray admits his attempt to refresh Sunderland's starting XI backfired as the Black Cats lost at home to Cardiff City. Mowbray made four changes to the side that began the midweek win at Huddersfield, and amongst those alterations he opted to rest experienced midfielders such as Corry Evans and Alex Pritchard and hand teenager Abdoullah Ba his first start alongside the still relatively inexperienced Dan Neil.
That allowed Cardiff to dominate the first half and it was not until the second period when the likes of Evans and Pritchard came off the bench that Sunderland belatedly took some measure of control. "We made a few changes to try and freshen it up and ultimately I don't think it helped the team," said Mowbray.
"We're all disappointed because we were trying to get back-to-back wins after a good win [at Huddersfield] - not a great performance, but a good win away from home - and we tried to follow that up. You'd have to say that Cardiff played well today and congratulate them, while we lacked the intensity to be able to stop that.
