WYKE HITS HAT-TRICK BUT LEE EYES MORE

LEE JOHNSON admitted Sunderland were not at their best, but when you have a striker of the class of Charlie Wyke it does not matter as they battled to victory over AFC Wimbledon.

- Matt Baldwin

Wyke opened the scoring after just seven minutes, before completing a hattrick with two late strikes as the Black Cats continued their play-off push.

And while Johnson was unimpressed by the attitude of his team in the first half, Wyke’s finishing more than made up for it in the end.

Johnson said: “It definitely wasn’t a game full of top-class guile and skill, we didn’t quite get enough patterns of play going. You have to give credit to Wimbledon for that, the way they shut us down.

“I felt in the first half we didn’t show a top attitude, I was a little frustrated, I don’t like it when we show dissent to our own players or even to themselves.

“It wasn’t a scrappy win in the end but, up to the 70th-minute mark, you could have watched the game, not known the score and thought it was even stevens.