"They sat behind the ball" - Sunderland boss talks Sheffield Wednesday tactics after Owls win in Carabao Cup

Sunderland manager Alex Neil admitted wholesale changes to his line-up contributed to a so-so Sunderland performance as they were soundly dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Sheffield Wednesday.
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Goals from Dennis Adeniran and Sylla Sow put the Owls through to the second round where they will welcome Rochdale.

Neil made 11 changes to his side from the one that beat Bristol City on Saturday and said Wednesday’s tactics played a contributing factor in quelling the threat of stand-in striker Jack Diamond.

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Sunderland boss Alex Neil spoke about his side's performance in their 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.Sunderland boss Alex Neil spoke about his side's performance in their 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
Sunderland boss Alex Neil spoke about his side's performance in their 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
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Sheffield Wednesday sat back behind the ball,” he told Sky Sports. “We’ve got a striker who is really quick, but there wasn’t a lot of space in there because they sat really deep.

“We had a full back on one side and a midfielder on the other. You look at us on a Saturday for instance and we’ve got two wingers in those positions and two six-foot centre-forwards, it’s all very, very different.

“What I tried to do was come up with the best system I could to try to play through them and unfortunately we didn’t move the ball cleanly enough to create opportunities.

“They punished us. It is what it is.

“We’ve got players playing out of position, which is tough for them, but we didn’t carry enough threat in the game and we made a couple of errors.

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“When those errors came along we got punished, so it’s disappointing from our point of view being out of the cup, but it’s difficult to judge the players too harshly because I made 11 changes which is always difficult.