adminLONDON. — Being thrashed 8-0 at Southampton shocked Sunderland to the core and rebuilding confidence will take time but Monday night’s 3-1 win at Crystal Palace was a good start, assistant head coach Mauricio Taricco said.
Taricco said that luck had also played a part on Monday with Sunderland surviving a strong penalty appeal from Palace in the first minute after Santiago Vergini appeared to bring down Frazier Campbell.
“The last two results, the manner in which we lost hit us all pretty hard and it shows a bit,” manager Gus Poyet’s right-hand man said of the rout at Southampton two weeks ago followed by a 2-0 defeat at home to Arsenal.
“We had been playing a bit better even than today but it really shocked us all.”
The win with two goals from striker Steven Fletcher and one by midfielder Jordi Gomez was a tonic.
Confidence building was now a big a part of the job former Tottenham Hotspur teammates Poyet and Taricco needed to do to move Sunderland further into Premier League mid-table territory.
“It’s our task, to get back to the way we were playing at the beginning (of the season) because, without playing very well, without being extraordinary we were always in the game, we didn’t give away many goals until the match against Southampton destabilised us,” Taricco said. — Soccernet.
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