Tony Mowbray admits the 3-0 scoreline flattered Sunderland as they beat Millwall at the Stadium of Light to move to within a point of the Championship play-off places. Goals from Amad, Alex Pritchard, and Ellis Simms saw the Black Cats compete back-to-back wins which lifted them to tenth place and, given how tight things are in the table, that means they are just a single point behind sixth-placed QPR.
Mowbray was delighted with the result although he acknowledged that the game never felt as comfortable as the final scoreline suggested. "Ultimately, sitting here we're pleased with three points and a clean sheet, a 3-0 win at home," said Mowbray.
"It never felt that comfortable for most of the game. I wasn't too happy at half-time.
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"My honesty with them is to tell them I thought we came second-best in the fight in the first half, it was a scrappy affair and we never got any fluency to our game. They won too many second balls, the ball was going towards our goal rather than theirs too often, but I think we reacted really well.
"It shows you the fine margins in football, really, because I know we have the quality to hurt teams when we are attacking teams and going forward and we've got the ball. But teams don't allow you to do that all the time, and in the first half I thought that invariably they [Millwall] won most of those challenges.
"Switching that fine percentage a little bit turned the game, and the individuality we have got helped us to win the game. Millwall had some good moments in the first half.
"Goodness me, I'm sure Gary [Rowett, the Millwall manager] will be unable to fathom how they didn't score. We'd tried to give them a goal really - once Patto [goalkeeper Anthony Patterson] had played it out to their centre-forward and yet he missed an open goal."
The game marked Sunderland's return to action after the World Cup break. While most teams in the Championship had a four-week break, Sunderland and Millwall agreed to reschedule this match - which was postponed in September following the death of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - and resume a week earlier than their rivals.
Mowbray said: "It was an important game for us. It was a call to play this game early, Millwall were happy to do it, and it has levelled the games up.
"Just about everybody has now played 21 games and we are where we are - tenth in the table, a point outside the top six - and I think we have to be relatively happy with that. We're not happy with the first-half performance today, but we are happy with the result.
"We need to keep improving, nobody is saying we are this or we're that, we just have to keep going for the supporters and then when we get to the transfer window we have to try and keep adding to the quality and fill the place full of good players who can win football matches."
Mowbray singled out the hard work of striker Simms for praise, and also labelled centre-back Danny Batth as 'amazing'. He said: "When they work as hard as they did in the second half, if you use Ellis Simms as an example, he was out on his feet and on another day he might have wanted to come off.
"But he kept running and chasing and closing down, and that gave him an opportunity to score a goal right at the end. I also think Danny Batth needs a special mention. Against such a potent team from set-plays and how many first contacts they made, he was amazing today and how dominant he was in keeping the ball out of our net.
"I think before this game the stats said something like 63 percent of all their goals come from set-plays, so Danny Batth was really important for us today and did an amazing job."
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