Tony Mowbray praised the way his side 'reacted to adversity' after trailing 2-0 against Swansea City - even though Sunderland ultimately came up short. The Black Cats were outplayed in the first half at the Swansea.com Stadium, and went in at the interval in all kinds of trouble after goals from Ollie Cooper and Harry Darling had put the Swans on course for victory.
But Mowbray rallied his troops at half-time and made one or two tweaks, most notably shifting Jack Clarke to a more central role, and it immediately paid off as Clarke halved the deficit. Sunderland tried to force the equaliser but were unable to do so, although Mowbray insists he was pleased with the way his side performed in the second half.
"We know how they play, they overload midfield and play a box of four in there, and it was just whether we were going to change everything we'd been doing to match them up," said Mowbray. "Sometimes you do, but we wanted to give the team an opportunity to go and see if we could get on top of them and create the overload in the wide areas with a full-back and a wide attacker where they only had a wingback.
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"We wanted to see if we could come out on top, but ultimately they came out on top in the first half and played through us too comfortably in the middle, they always got their spare man on the ball and pushed us back. We tinkered with it and changed it a little bit at half-time, and managed to wrestle the game back.
"We scored and were pushing hard for an equaliser, but it wasn't to be. We have to take the encouragement from the second half performance.
"The second goal was a really poor goal to concede coming so close to half-time, and it was a basic set-play that we'd talked about and showed them. It was a basic and elementary goal that we'd worked on and looked at, and it shouldn't have happened.
"We had to upset their rhythm and find a way to do it, and they didn't look like a possession-based side in the second half. In the first half they were very good and we have to accept that, but we found a way to disrupt them.
"That was the pleasing thing - we can react to the adversity of going behind. The result is the result, but you have to look at the performance of the team and what was pleasing was the reaction of the team.
"You have to accept that Swansea are one of the real form teams in the league with five wins in six now."
Defeat brought Sunderland's four-game unbeaten run to an end and saw them slip to 11th in the table, but Mowbray was not too downhearted. He said: "I've just said to the players, I don't think anybody is out there expecting them to go out there and win every away game and be like a top, top, team in the league.
"They've come from League One and as long as they believe that they are in there fighting against every team, and they are not outclassed, that's the important thing. We always feel we can get a result and we nearly did today, of sorts.
"Particularly when you look at the second goal - it was a very simplistic set-play. I must say, though, that I think Swansea are a good team, a very well-coached team with good players and it is no accident that they've won five out of six."
Sunderland picked up a number of yellow cards in the game, with central midfielder Corry Evans and Dan Neil among those to receive cautions. Skipper Corry Evans will now miss next weekend's home game against Wigan Athletic as he has accumulated five booking for the season.
Mowbray said: "It doesn't help because that's where we had to be really aggressive today, in that central area - maybe that's why they picked up the yellow cards. Swansea do play through the midfield, they do play this box in midfield, and they do try to overload you with the extra men.
"We wanted to go toe-to-toe and see if we could get our wide players and our full-backs joining in in wide areas, but they got through too easy in the first half. In the second half we deserve a lot of credit - ultimately we got no points, but they did deserve credit."
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