Sunderland coach questions 'lack of desire' in team as young players struggle to impress

Sunderland Under-21 lead coach Graeme Murty bemoaned his team’s “lack of desire” in a 2-1 defeat to Sheffield United and snapped, “it was a capitulation.”

Despite Harrison Jones giving the Black Cats an early lead, second-half goals from Owen Hampson and Zain Tahir confirmed all three points for the Blades in the Group D Premier League Cup contest.

Murty told the club: “We had a lack of desire to match their intensity and their hard running and manner shown around the game and we didn’t manage to match that. “It was a capitulation. I said to them at half time, ‘if you don’t up your levels of work and your levels of accountability, they are going to steamroller you and I think they ran over us in the second half and the disappointing thing for us is we didn’t have anyone stand up to it.

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“Since I’ve been here, we have talked about the variability of our squad. When we are really good and when we are poor. There were some brief flashes of really good stuff but not enough of them. There was lots of stuff where we were struggling. It’s really challenging for me as a coach to watch them struggle and not attempt to change too much. Because they now need to bring that part of their game forward.

“We talked to them about it and challenged them to go and do it. When you leave people to struggle like that we have to restrain ourselves from stepping in too early. And sometimes you need a reversal and a bad performance and a bad result to actually impact the lessons and the messages we are talking about so I think we got what we deserved.”

Sunderland host Manchester City in the PL2 on Saturday (midday) and Murty added: “They know the levels we expect and they didn’t hit those levels here. The lads have had lots of plaudits, lots of pats on the back. The last time we had a plaudits like that was after Fulham, where we got a pasting, and the lads had to respond and they did. They went on a really good run. So the last time they had something like that they responded in a magnificent way. So if they can take that lesson forward and that attitude I will be happy but the truth is going to be on Saturday.”

Sunderland AFC U21s: Cameron, Lavery, Bell, Anderson, Jenson Jones, Lenz (Jaydon Jones 60), Middlemas (Walsh 85), H.Jones (Whittaker 85), Bennette, Ba, Ogunsuyi.
Subs not used: Chibueze, Kindon.