Sunderland sink Burnley as Jermain Defoe hits first goal for club

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/31/sunderland-burnley-premier-league-match-report

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Jermain Defoe finally scored, Danny Ings was withdrawn in a huff and nobody booed as Sunderland won a Premier League game at home for only the second time this season.

At the end of a week in which even Gus Poyet conceded his frequently jeered team had been “rubbish to watch” of late, a much-improved performance eased relegation fears on Wearside.

Only time will tell whether it actually proves the turning point Sunderland’s manager craves but Burnley – and Ings – will need to play much better than this if they are to survive.

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“I’m happy,” said Poyet. “It was a much-needed win. At last we scored two goals from two crosses – but we’re not OK yet, we won a football game, that’s all.”

Poyet abandoned his recent experiment with five at the back, replacing that formation with a broadly 4-3-3 configuration featuring Defoe as the central striker and Connor Wickham and Adam Johnson stationed wide on the right and left, respectively.

Although Wickham and Johnson had licence to roam while drifting inwards, this system initially looked alarmingly, deceptively, negative. Indeed Defoe was looking rather isolated when, in the 20th minute, Sunderland created their first real chance and Wickham scored.

With referee Lee Mason playing advantage, Sebastian Larsson shrugged off a foul and provided Anthony Réveillère with a fine pass. Overlapping from right-back, Réveillère promptly supplied Wickham with a splendid cross which the former England Under-21 striker headed past Tom Heaton.

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By half-time Defoe had scored his long-awaited first goal in a Sunderland shirt since arriving from Toronto earlier this month. It was an entirely typical finish from the former England striker who, having manoeuvred himself into exactly the right place at the right time, extended his right boot and beat Heaton from close range after connecting with a left-wing cross from the arguably offside Patrick van Aanholt. As Defoe celebrated, Jordi Gómez could reflect on a job well done in picking out Van Aanholt with an audacious precision pass. “I knew Jermain would score,” said Poyet.

The odd George Boyd cameo aside, Burnley had contributed little – although Ashley Barnes knew he really should have beaten Costel Pantilimon with an early header following David Jones’s free kick.

Despite Defoe missing a relatively simple chance after Johnson’s clever reverse pass and another Van Aanholt cross, Sean Dyche’s side upped their game a little in the second half. Who knows what might have happened had Barnes subsequently done better with an inviting headed chance and a promising shooting opening after being twice set up by Boyd.

Instead we were treated to a rare show of dissent among Burnley ranks. If it came as a surprise to see Dyche replace Boyd with Ross Wallace, his decision to send on Lukas Jutkiewicz in place of the much-coveted, yet almost entirely anonymous, Ings proved somewhat less startling.

Ings, though, seemed rather put out and deliberately avoided eye contact with Burnley’s manager as he trudged off, shaking his head and muttering to himself. It will be interesting to see where the forward is playing this time next week.

Dyche remains confident it will be at Turf Moor. “Everyone will tell you Danny will still be a Burnley player,” he said. “It would take an impossible offer for something to happen. I took Danny off because I think it [the transfer speculation] affected him. I’d considered not starting him. It’s all been too much, he’s a young, human, footballer, the good things about his game weren’t there.”

The same could be said of a few team-mates. “We didn’t have the edge, the clarity and the moments of quality you need to win matches,” agreed Dyche. “The edge we normally have came back in the second half but, by then, we’d made it easy for Sunderland by giving away two awful goals.”