O´Neill praises ´extraordinary´ win

Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill saluted his players for ‘defending for their lives’ in the ‘extraordinary’ victory over Manchester City.

O’Neill sang his players’ praises after his injury-hit side, who are hovering just above the relegation zone, upset the odds to beat league leaders City thanks to a 93rd minute goal from South Korea international Ji Dong-won.

“It was just a remarkable performance by the team and for us to win the game was extraordinary,” O’Neill told reporters.

“I accept that Man City were camped outside our penalty area for the last 20 minutes but for us to get players up in support when their move broke down in the 93rd minute was fantastic.”

Sunderland seemed to be happy to hang on for a draw when Ji finished off an incisive counter-attack that gathered momentum thanks to O’Neill.

“I was asked whether I was ushering them into the corner before the goal and remarkably I wasn’t,” O’Neill said.

“Had we been dispossessed on the edge of their penalty box I didn’t think there would be enough time for Manchester City to get back up to the other end so I thought let’s go and attack them.”

O’Neill reserved special praise for skipper Lee Cattermole.

“The whole performance was probably epitomised by the captain who was really fantastic and at the end I told him that I thought his performance was absolutely terrific,” he said.

Sunderland have earned 10 points in five games since O’Neill succeeded Steve Bruce and his team head to Wigan Athletic on Tuesday desperate for points to ease the club away from the drop zone.

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini outlined defensive concerns after the loss.

“It was frustrating because we can’t lose a game like we did today,” the 47-year-old said.

“The second half we had I don’t know how many chances to score but in football sometimes you can’t win.”

Mancini then criticised his defence for conceding a goal on the counter-attack, suggesting that he had to continually shout at his defenders to position them correctly while the rest of the team searched for a goal.

“I am disappointed that we conceded the goal because a strong team cannot concede a goal like this, because we conceded a goal on a counter-attack which is very dangerous,” he said.

“I know football and for this reason in the last 15 minutes I continued to call Vinny (Kompany) and (Joleon) Lescott and Kompany to say ‘stay there, stay there’ and don’t leave this space and I think I nearly lost my voice because of this.”

“I understood that it was dangerous because we continued to attack and at the same time we wanted to attack with 10 players and this is impossible.”

“In that situation we attacked with eight players and the same players that were in attack we needed to come back and run quickly.”

“I have been saying in press conferences that now we are scoring three or four goals a game but there will be times when we don’t score any goals because football is like this. There are times when you can’t score and you don’t know why.”