Joe Nicholson reacts as Sunderland are knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Crewe

Joe Nicholson reacts as Sunderland are knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Crewe on penalties

Transcript

00:00 Outside the stadium of light where Sunderland have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup,

00:06 losing on penalties to League Two side Crewe, another disappointing night for Tony Mowbray's

00:11 side after the Black Cats boss made 10 changes to his team following Sunday's defeat in the

00:17 championship against Ipswich. Dan Neal was the only player to keep his place and it once

00:22 again really showed the lack of depth in certain areas really for Sunderland who had more of

00:27 the ball for large parts of the game against a Crewe side which were playing with five

00:32 at the back and were trying to hit Sunderland on the break but it was the visitors who took

00:36 the lead on the stroke of half time from a header from defender Luke Ofton and Sunderland

00:41 trailing at the break. It did improve in the second half when Mowbray brought on players

00:46 like Jack Clark and Bradley Datt came on and made his debut. They both looked bright and

00:53 Sunderland managed to get an equaliser through Chris Rigg, the 16-year-old who was making

00:58 his first senior start for Sunderland tonight. It was a good finish from him in the 64th

01:03 minute to get the score back to 1-1 and then Sunderland were pushing for a winner but weren't

01:08 able to get that goal. The game then went straight to penalties and Pierre Equart was

01:14 the only player to miss. He came off the bench in the second half as well. Crewe emphatically

01:19 converted all five of their spot kicks and Equart's miss meaning Sunderland go out. Tony

01:24 Mowbray has just been in for his post-match press conference and was delayed coming into

01:29 press. He had been having a meeting with Christian Speakman about trying to sign more strikers

01:35 at the top end of the pitch. Stuartson Bennett was up front for Sunderland again tonight

01:39 with Hemaire rested following his appearance against Ipswich. So that really again showed

01:45 the lack of strike options that Mowbray has at his disposal with Ross Stewart still out

01:50 injured. Sunderland have got bids on the table for strikers and obviously that meeting today

01:55 between Mowbray and Speakman looks like there's progress being made on that front but again

02:01 tonight it kind of showed the lack of options that Sunderland have in certain positions,

02:05 particularly up front as also in central midfield where Neil and Equart played 45 minutes each.

02:12 Both of them obviously played the game against Ipswich on Sunday and Mowbray feeling that

02:16 he didn't really have any other options to put in there alongside Chris Rigg that could

02:20 compete even with a League 2 oppositioning crew tonight. So another disappointing night

02:26 for Sunderland out of the Carabao Cup and they'll now prepare for Saturday's away game

02:31 against Preston in the Championship and you can find all the build-ups of that game over

02:36 on the SFC section of the Sunderland Echo website.