The Sunderland manager has come out and praised his players after they battled hard to hold on for a 3-3 draw at the Etihad stadium against Manchester City despite leading earlier on by two goals in their Premier League encounter...
Manchester City were held to a 3-3 draw at their own home stadium by Sunderland as the title race took another turn for the worst for the Citizens. Martin O’Neill’s team were leading the men in blue by three goals to one in the
second half but two quick goals in the last ten minutes of the match by Kolarov and Balotelli changed the end result but Sunderland’s players did well to maintain their cool under the pressure in the end as City tried their best to gain all three points.
With this latest slip up, the advantage is with Manchester United, who can have a five point advantage if they win their next league encounter against Blackburn http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Rovers-c40385 on the 2nd of April, 2012. It still remains to be
seen whether or not Sir http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Alex-c4752 Ferguson’s men will cash in on this opportunity but credit goes to Sunderland’s players who not only did well to match Manchester City’s superstars but in some cases out played them especially on the counter attack.
Martin O’Neill gave his thoughts on the match in his post-match press conference as he said, He told reporters after the match: “I thought that genuinely that the referee was going to book their player [Balotelli] for diving, but
I should have known better. Referees have a really difficult http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Job-c18684, but I spoke to the referee in the tunnel just at the end and he said it was a penalty. I don’t think it was and I think the replays will show that and really disappointing obviously, it’s a
major blow to us just a couple of minutes before half-time.”
He added, “But, it shouldn’t detract from our performance. I thought we played brilliantly today and obviously disappointed to have dropped some points. They [City] have won 15 consecutive games here, we’re the first team to take
some points off them and they’re second in the league. So they’re a very, very good team and they’ve got so many match winners and if you ask me now I think we got a little bit tired obviously.”
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