Lee Grant expresses his delight as Huddersfield earn shoot-out win at Sunderland | OneFootball

Lee Grant expressed his delight as Huddersfield earned a 6-5 penalty shoot-out win against Sunderland in the third round of the Carabao Cup.

The game reached spot-kicks after Marc Guiu cancelled out Leo Castledine’s opener to draw 1-1 in normal time and Milan Aleksic had his penalty saved for the Terriers to win.

It is their second successive shoot-out victory in the competition having beaten Championship side Leicester in the first round, and Grant expressed his pride.

“I’m delighted, proud of the group, obviously,” he said.

“The whole group, the ones who played, the ones who don’t. The staff, quickest off the mark when needed as well. Absolutely delighted.”

Huddersfield made 10 changes for the game and they took an early lead through Castledine’s ninth-minute volley before eventually prevailing on penalties.

It is the latest in a string of positive results for the Terriers, who are second in League One, and Grant revealed he has been “bowled over” by the work rate of his players.

He said: “We’ve talked about on a few occasions this golden thread we want to run through the whole squad so when we get an injury or make changes or when we rotate – for whatever reason that may be – we can have a high level of performance from the whole group.

“With regards to the team we put out today, that’s a team that deserved to play. When we pick a team for Saturday, it’ll be the team who deserves to play.

“Regardless of whether you’re 18, 19 or senior, the guys on the pitch today all deserved to be there.

“Again, delighted for them because they’re working so hard as a group every single day.

“Some of them are doing that in the shadows more so at the moment and have had opportunities at Leicester and Sunderland to show where they’re at.

“I’ve been bowled over by how ready they’ve been to come into a side and execute.”

Following their cup exit, Sunderland’s attention now returns to the Premier League ahead of their meeting with Brentford on Saturday.

Regis Le Bris confirmed post-match that they will be without Dan Ballard, who is set to be sidelined for around three weeks.

Le Bris named an entirely different starting XI to last weekend’s defeat against Burnley with new signings Nordi Mukiele, Arthur Masuaku and Guiu among those starting.

Guiu scored his first Sunderland goal with an 84th-minute equaliser and Le Bris was pleased to see a much-changed side improve in the second half.

“We always want to win and it wasn’t the case at the end. The main purpose of the evening was to win and we failed,” he said.

“It’s not the only learning because I think, yes, we struggled a bit during the first half because we needed to test different options.

“On the pitch we had many new players so we had to experience in real conditions and it was the case this evening one option, if it doesn’t work try another option.

“I think during the second half it was much better and it’s positive for the future, especially Saturday.”