Sunderland assistant boss Parkin hails influential Maguire - 7M sport

Sunderland assistant boss Parkin hails influential Maguire



Posted Wednesday, February 12, 2020 by PA

Sunderland assistant boss Parkin hails influential Maguire

Sunderland assistant manager Steve Parkin hailed Chris Maguire’s match-winning exploits after the forward helped set up all three of his side’s goals in their 3-0 win over Rochdale.

Having scored the winner in Saturday’s 1-0 success over Ipswich, Maguire turned provider as Sunderland climbed to fifth position in the League One table.

The 31-year-old was instructed to work on his fitness when Phil Parkinson and Parkin were appointed at the Stadium of Light, and has responded with a string of effective recent displays.

Parkin said: “I think he’s a player playing with a lot of confidence. I think he enjoys the role, he’s relishing the fact that he gets a lot of the ball and in good areas.

“He’s a tremendous crosser of the ball, if you give him half a yard he will put it in a good area. He’s been a key player for us and he’s enjoying his football.”

Sunderland scored all three of their goals in the opening 32 minutes with Lynden Gooch scoring twice to bookend an own goal from Rochdale defender Eoghan O’Connell.

Parkin, who conducted press duties instead of Parkinson, was delighted with his side’s positive mindset, which forced Rochdale’s players into a succession of costly mistakes.

He said: “It was a professional performance. We set out a way we wanted to play today, we wanted to come out the blocks and back up the second-half performance at the weekend.

“The lads never gave Rochdale a chance to breathe really, they were right on top of them.

“Tactically, the pressing worked a treat, we were all in our blocks and the lads at the back allowed them to do that properly because they were right up on the halfway line.

“We’re delighted with the win, the goals and the clean sheet, which is massive for us.

“We’ve been more or less playing like that for five or six weeks, getting the ball wide, switching the play, backing that up by getting people on the edge of the box. We lock attacks in and in difficult conditions, some of the play was exceptional.”

Rochdale were comprehensively outplayed in the first half, and their manager, Brian Barry-Murphy, admitted his players had been unable to live with their opponents before the interval.

Dale had performed impressively as they drew at Doncaster at the weekend, but Barry-Murphy conceded his side had failed to match the standards they set at the Keepmoat Stadium.

He said: “If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t think we played anywhere near the level we can at any stage of the game. Even in the second half, as good as we were on Saturday against Doncaster, there was no real resemblance of what we did there.

“Without making excuses, I would suggest that, physically, our players just couldn’t reproduce what they did on Saturday. Whether that was physical, mental or whatever, I’m not quite sure, but we couldn’t reproduce what we did at the weekend. That was the disappointing thing for us.

“We’ve been trying to relieve the load, but we did so well on Saturday it was hard to see who shouldn’t play. We just didn’t play well. There were too many of us who just didn’t perform.”

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