'Sunderland shouldn't be losing to Rotherham,' says Tony Mowbray

Tony Mowbray has dissected the defeat to Rotherham and it's fair to say he wasn't happy at all with his players.

Michael Graham | Feb 21, 2023

'Sunderland shouldn't be losing to Rotherham,' says Tony Mowbray /

Tony Mowbray has told his Sunderland players that Rotherham are not a team they should be losing to.

Sunderland were well below their best in the 2-1 defeat at New York Stadium, with them struggling from the off to match the Millers’ high-energy and commitment levels.

Some of that would have been down to fatigue within his squad, while Mowbray was also keen to give Rotherham credit for their performance.

However, ultimately he felt Sunderland just didn’t do themselves justice and that is ‘frustrating’ given the quality in his side.

“We came to Rotherham, who had only won one of their last 13 or whatever it was, and we shouldn’t be losing here,” Mowbray said. “Yet we did, and we’re frustrated.”

The performance in the first half was especially flat, with the first goal especially coming about from a lack of desire to close down goalscorer Ollie Rathbone.

That left Mowbray scratching his head a little, although he knows his team just were not good enough on the night.

“I try and heighten their emotions before every game of what’s coming,” Mowbray said. “We can give every team in the league problems, but I think with the way they play, Rotherham can make a football match of every game because they play against the ball very well.

“They work very hard and they’re very committed. Ultimately, if you want to be a top team, you have to overcome that. The first half, in particular, wasn’t good enough.”

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Published Feb 21, 2023

MICHAEL GRAHAM

Michael Graham is a professional sports writer with more than ten years of industry experience. After pursuing football writing by helping establish the Roker Report Sunderland AFC fansite, Michael moved to Planet Sport to cover football. Michael has since worked on many of the sports sites within the Planet Sport network, including Football365, TEAMtalk and Planet Football before leaving to join 90min. As well as football, Michael is an accomplished tennis writer and has been regularly featured on Tennishead, TennisBuzz and Tennis365. It is football that is his first love, though, with Sunderland AFC his particular passion. Contact: michael@buzzpublishing.co.uk