Sunderland boss issues blunt verdict on Hartlepool United defeat & gives Jenson Seelt update

Tony Mowbray says his Sunderland XI for the start of the Championship campaign is unlikely to be changed after the pre-season campaign ended with a 5-2 defeat to Hartlepool United.

Those who featured in the 1-1 draw with Real Mallorca look to be in pole position to face Ipswich Town on Sunday evening after a disjointed performance from an entirely-rotated side at Hartlepool.

Mowbray fielded a number of players out of position in order to ensure that everyone in his squad has had significant game time before the start of the season, and that was clearly a factor in an unconvincing performance that featured a number of individual errors.

While acknowledging that lack of familiarity was clearly a factor in the defeat, the head coach was disappointed with the general performance level and apologetic to the Sunderland support who had made the trip in significant numbers.

"I'm just disappointed for the fans, all the people who came and filled both ends of the stadium," Mowbray said.

"Football is about application, every time you train and play you are being judged. I have to pick eleven out of the 25 that we've got and I think that if I look there tonight, I don't think I see many who are going to threaten the starting XI at the weekend.

"There's things for all the individuals to learn.

"There's no excuses, they played well but for us, it's probably good to have a game like that. An English game against a team with something to prove who run and fight and tackle and work really, really hard. They're good games. I don't see many there who will threaten the team on Sunday, I thought the performance on Saturday generally showed we have a lot of quality and fighting spirit. "That wasn't really there at times tonight.

"I think there's an obvious question about strength in depth just because of the inexperience of the group, but of course we did have some experienced players out there and they were amazing for us last year.

"We expect more for the fans who come out and spend their money to watch us. It felt at times as if we were missing that concentration tonight, some of the decision making was poor and I'm sure we won't see that when the season starts."

Mowbray also confirmed that summer signing Jenson Seelt will miss the start of the season with an ankle problem.

Seelt suffered a recurrence of an ankle problem on his Sunderland debut during the club's US tour, and while there was some hope he would feature over the last two games, his absence is now expected to extend into the opening weeks of the season.

It is not thought to be a major issue.

"Jenson has that problem with his ankle, it looks as if he's going to be a few weeks [away]," Mowbray said.

"It'll be good moving forward when we've got plenty of choice, but the structure and the defence at the weekend looked pretty strong."