Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl has claimed that Sunderland are an “exciting team” but has suggested that the Black Cats have lost some of their early season momentum heading into their trip to Hillsborough to face his side on Friday evening.
Regis Le Bris’ side endured a difficult week last time out, losing to Leeds United on Monday evening before slumping to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Hull City on Saturday lunchtime. As a consequence, they now find themselves eight points adrift of the automatic promotion places, but Rohl is reluctant to suggest that now is a good time to play the promotion hopefuls.
Speaking in a press conference on Thursday, he said: “You never know. I think Championship football, I’m not sure if there’s always a moment where you think it’s better. They can also say, ‘Oh, to play against Wednesday now…’.
“I think they will have watched our games and they will see how we played against Coventry, how we played against Burnley. I think they know what we want to do and I think this is no team who will say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s easy to play’. I think even Burnley said after the game, the manager of Burnley said this in the press conference, that it was not easy.
“You get the feedback straight after the game from the players, from the opponent’s side or from the coaches. They feel that we’re doing good, but at the end of such a game it won’t be to get a handshake and say, ‘Yeah, good playing’. No, at the end they want to have a point, or points… Better points instead of a point.”
When asked how impressed he has been with Sunderland so far this season, Rohl added: “I think they had a good momentum. They started well in the season. They have an exciting team, a good balance between mixed and experienced.
“But they feel as well it’s a long, long race. It’s not just a sprint. You have to be ready for a long race and this is 46 games. Now they come also in the period where maybe it’s a little bit harder to take points. I think every team – even the top teams – every team has such a period in the season where you miss a little bit the momentum, you miss a little bit of luck in certain situations. But this is football, this is the Championship and I think our job is now to pull back the games to our side. If we can do this, then it looks good.”
For their part, Wednesday head into Friday’s contest 13th in the table, six points adrift of the play-off places, and having won just one of their past five Championship outings.
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