Sheaf was forced off with the head injury, that the manager has confirmed is not concussion but a deep cut on the player’s forhead.
City fought on without Sheaf to maintain and extend their lead in the North East, heading back to Coventry with the win.
His thoughts on the game:
“Both teams I think gave the ball away too cheaply, certainly in the first half. But again, chances were at a premium.
“I thought that we made them work really hard for any sort of slight openings that they got. Likewise, for us, we were struggling to sort of get anything further up the pitch.”
“Today, we just got to be a little bit better, a little bit more, a little bit calmer on the ball. When we got it back when we won it back, we spoke about that at halftime. We came out and didn’t really start brilliantly.
“They started on the front foot they had one or two chances and we just said in there that’s where we won the game.
“There were times when we threw bodies in front of the ball we got good blocks in, interceptions, the ball gets played into the box we won the headers we defended corners really well. The two wide players are obviously a big strength of theirs.
“On the sides we were we were pretty good and then we got a breakthrough with a goal where they’ve done great down the left-hand side.”
On the goals:
“Bidders got the ball, and he played it. They’ve tried to cut it out. They got it out. We won it back then the ball gets squared across, it ricochets off Tatsu and then goes into the net but he’s in the right place at the right time. That sort of gives him a little bit of confidence.
“We got our noses in front and then looked at maybe one or two tiring, certainly Callum looked like he was tiring. Then he picks the ball up and sticks in the back of the net it was a brilliant finish. I mean, really calm. You know he’s picked it up he’s looked up and he’s found his spot he’s picked his spot brilliantly.
Then Kasey comes on as well and picks his spot brilliantly where the keepers made a save plays it into his path and he just he’s just calm, takes it around him opens the net up in sight and puts it into an empty net which gives us the final scoreline, very welcome.
On the fans, who travelled all the way to Sunderland on a Christmas weekend:
“The fans were brilliant. They stayed with us really, really well through it, singing really positively and you can feel that positivity. It’s fantastic.”
On Ben Sheaf’s injury:
“He’s got a fairly big flap of skin where the cut was like a V-shape on the top of his forehead.”
“The doctors have done a good job on it. It was sort of touching whether he needed some different stitches. So not to put anybody off the dinner, or anything like that, but it was a bad deep cut.
“The doctor looks like he’s got that back together and hopefully he can get on with it. There’s no concussion. So, he’s not having to go through that protocol.”
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