Luke O’Nien, a Black Cats defender, knows how much Jobe will be missed.
Defender Luke O’Nien praised Sunderland’s defensive structure after their 0-0 draw at QPR on Saturday. Régis Le Bris’ team kept their eighth clean sheet in 13 outings and earned a point against Wearside despite having Jobe Bellingham sent , for a nasty tackle. Bellingham’s ejection means he will be suspended for three games, but in an interview with safc.com, O’Nien discussed the match.
“We’re disappointed not to come away with three points, but under the circumstances and the way things unfolded going down to 10 it was a long time left, it’s an important point and they all add up over the course of a season,” said the player. “I was very pleased of the guys for digging deep there, and it will be a key point at the end of the season.
“We’ve been pretty solid. Credit must begin with Ally [Alessandro Barcherini], the goalkeeper coach. Simon [Moore] has come in and basically taken everything on board very well, making the team feel very comfortable, so there’s a lot of work going on during the week on our defensive framework, which I believe we needed a lot.” On Bellingham’s red card, he added: “Jobe has made massive tackles, as he does every game. I feel for him, and he doesn’t even have to apologize. I love him. He carries his weight, his ball skills are excellent, and we’ll miss him next week, but he’ll be back soon.”
Sunderland has a quick turnaround, as they face Preston North End on Wednesday. O’Nien continued, “Last week was a very excellent effort from us [against Oxford United], but we were in the next day and the way we assessed it. The coach always returns to the system defensively all over the pitch, and there are still many places to improve in. I believe this will be a good game to look back on and study because we did not have the same flow as in prior games.It’ll be useful to figure out why it didn’t work, and then we can work on it and prepare for Wednesday.”
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