Lee Johnson and John McGreal satisfied as Sunderland draw with Ipswich

Posted Sunday, December 19, 2021 by PA

Sunderland manager Lee Johnson and Ipswich interim boss John McGreal were both satisfied after their sides’ 1-1 draw in League One.

Both sides had the chances to win the game but the rival managers felt a point apiece was a fair result.

Johnson said: “I thought they had the better of the first half. We had the better of the second half and it was a good game in terms of competitiveness and aggression.

“We upped our aggression second half, we had to, too many individuals duels lost in the first half.

“We tried to stem the flow but we didn’t have loads of chances.

“We didn’t have any quality balls into our forwards and we had to change the shape to match them up and I thought second half we really did go toe to toe. In the lead-up to the goal there were four or five big tackles that led to us getting a ricochet and allowed Dan Neil to show his great feet, and a great through-ball and a really good finish from (Nathan) Broadhead.

“I’m alright with a point. I want to win football matches but this was a really difficult game for us. We didn’t quite stand up to it first half but second half came through and a draw is okay.”

Ipswich, who had their newly appointed manager Kieran McKenna watching on from the stands before taking on the role on Monday, had the lion’s share of the opening exchanges and Norwood gave the home side a deserved lead but Broadhead levelled the scores five minutes into the second half.

McGreal said: “I look back on it and it’s an add-on from Wigan last week.

“We felt we could have nicked it last week at Wigan with the performance and there was more than enough today to win a game of football. It’s just ironing out those little things.

“Ten minutes, 15 minutes into the second half they’ve equalised but again I thought our boys got back on the front foot.

“There was a plan throughout the week. We knew 30,000 fans were going to come, we know how well they’re performing and everyone was on the front foot.

“We went a little bit man for man. We’ve got to stand up and every player, even the subs coming on, put in an unbelievable performance today.

“I thought that there was some quality throughout, we looked dangerous and looked a real potent, fit team.”