Lee Johnson admits he wanted more from Sunderland in comfortable away win

Posted Tuesday, December 28, 2021 by PA

Sunderland boss Lee Johnson was pleased with his side’s comfortable 3-0 win at Doncaster but admitted he wanted even more from his promotion-chasing team.

Ross Stewart’s penalty, an Elliot Embleton effort and an own goal from Ben Blythe saw the Black Cats dominate against struggling Rovers and move back into the Sky Bet League One automatic promotion places.

Johnson was happy with Sunderland’s performance after losing players to Covid-19 but felt they did not turn the screw on Doncaster.

“It was a difficult game for both teams in terms of injuries and Covid situations,” Johnson said. “We’ve got a couple out with it and are hoping it doesn’t spread to more.

“But we played some really good stuff, even though the standard setter in me wanted more at times. Once we got some momentum, we moved the ball around well but, at times, we let them off the hook a bit by trying to find a killer pass too early.

“It was nice, though, to get the third goal when we did. I thought that was important to settle us down and it enabled us to rest a few players going into a big game at home to Sheffield Wednesday in three days’ time, which is the type of game that will show us where we are in the division.

“There are a number of sides up there and we’ve just got to build up our philosophy and momentum and see how powerful it can be when we’re taking more than 4,000 away fans to games.”

Doncaster caretaker manager Gary McSheffrey insists there can be no throwing in of the towel after another disappointing defeat for his side.

McSheffrey expects to learn whether he has secured the job on a permanent basis on Tuesday but fully intends to lift the players as much as possible while he continues to lead the group.

“You can back them, try to keep their heads up and get on with it by moving on to the next game,” he said.

“We hope a few injured players come back in during January and that we can make one or two additions as well.”

McSheffrey believes a lack of shape hurt his side and made them exceptionally vulnerable to opposition of Sunderland’s quality.

“We got punished by quality really, but the three goals from our point of view were poor and we lacked discipline with our shape,” he said.

“We were riding the storm after the first goal because they were good but to concede the second after switching off from a set play was really disappointing.

“The big difference was that we took too many touches to get hold of the ball individually and we didn’t pass the ball quickly enough, whereas they moved the ball really well.”