Aye, in the 2nd half play shifted further down Sunderland's half making in harder for them to create anything at all. Hence we played better defensively by switching to a slightly more attacking midfielder who incidentally also made sure we didn't lose the ball as easily as we did in the 1st half. Rafa's played the Alonso/Gerrard combo before in midfield, and if memory serves me right it was a pretty good partnership. Hard for me to see why putting Plessis in there instead of Xabi would improve things.