Source: SKY_Sports
Sbragia - Brown out of line
Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia has revealed that he used Phil Brown's pre-match comments to motivate his players for their match with Hull City.
Brown had stated that the Black Cats should not be involved in the relegation fight because of the money they have spent on transfers at the Stadium of Light.
But the tactic backfired on the Hull manager as Djibril Cisse scored the winning goal to boost their hopes of Premier League survival.
"(There was) a couple of comments in the papers today regarding what we've bought but I though they came up with the goods," Sbragia told Sky Sports.
Fantastic"I thought Kenwyne was excellent and Anton was absolutely fantastic.
"I don't think the manager should criticise the players another club buys and that's why we didn't need any motivation, that was enough for us today.
"We stuck the headlines on the wall and we got a response."
In a closely-fought encounter, Sunderland triumphed by a single goal scored on the stroke of half-time.
Despite the visitors putting the home side under pressure at the end of the match, Sbragia thought that Sunderland were good value for their win.
Deserved
"I though at the end of the day we did (deserve it)," he added.
"We had a lot of chances, we hit the post in the last minute, we came under a lot of pressure. I think both defences were very difficult to breach."
Cisse appeared to be in an off-side position when he scored the only goal of the game, but Sbragia was indifferent to any suggestions that the goal should not have stood.
The Scotsman believes that his team were due a fortunate decision.
"I don't care. It's gone the other way many times," he said.
"We've complained about many things but we've had a bit of luck today and it's got us the three points and I think that was very important."
