Sunderland left it late to secure their first victory on the road this season with two goals in the last ten minutes against Bolton, but claimed a vital three points for the lads and Steve Bruce. Stephane Sessegnon and Nicklas Benter both struck to give us a deserved victory against a very poor Bolton Wanderers side.

Like us, Bolton have also had a poor start to the season but in their defence they have faced a string of much tougher games in their opening fixtures than Sunderland. Having won last Saturday at Wigan Owen Coyle will have identified this game as another opportunity for three points and a chance to kick start their season.

Meanwhile for Steve Bruce the pressure and discontent continued to grow on Wearside this past week after defeat last Sunday at Arsenal. Myself, and the majority of other Sunderland supporters were getting fed up with the excuses after games and empty promises of how the players are going to put it right in the next match.

Steve Bruce indicated during the week that he would actually field a striker this afternoon and the availability of Nicklas Bendtner and Phil Bardsley further boosted the manager’s options.

We lined up in a 4-4-2 formation with Mignolet in goal behind a back four of, O’Shea, Brown, Turner and Richardson. In midfield Jack Colback and David Vaughan were supported on the flanks by Seb Larsson and Stephane Sessegnon. Up front Nicklas Benter returned, whilst Connor Wickham made his first competitive start for SAFC.

In fairness the first half was a fairly even affair. The home side started the better with Petrov firing over from long range inside five minutes before Pratley fired wide after good work from former Sunderland transfer target David Ngog on the wing.

Jack Colback, who was composed throughout the game, had our first effort when he found space on the edge of the box but his long range strike went over. Our best effort of the first half came from a set piece just before half time but O’Shea glanced Seb Larsson’s delivery wide.

After the break Sunderland took control of the game and began to dominate proceedings. The much maligned, (and unfairly so in my opinion), Kieran Richardson had two chances to give Sunderland the lead but failed to take either after David Vaughan had opened the Bolton defence with a clever reverse pass. Vaughan himself went close with a long range effort before the lively Wickham struck the bar with a miss-hit cross.

As we got into the last ten minutes of the game I worried that as we’d been so dominant throughout the second half without scoring we would be hit with the sucker punch. Fortunately my worries were unfounded as we took the lead in the 82 nd minute when Sessegnon turned in Seb Larsson’s corner. It was a clever and neat finish from the Benin international which sent the impressive travelling red and white army wild.

Having bossed the second half, typically once we scored we reverted to sitting back and Bolton could have equalised when Pratley was played into a dangerous position, but Simon Mignolet was equal to him with what was the goalkeeper’s only action in the second half – but what a great save. As Bolton continued to press for an underserved equaliser we pounced on the counter attack with Sessegnon finding Bendtner in the box allowing the Dane to net a crisp low one touch finish.

More of the same next week please.

Final Score: Bolton 0 Sunderland 2

ALS Man of the Match: David Vaughan

Aidan Crowe

ALS T Shirts click here