A recently buoyed Sunderland side headed down to White Hart Lane on Sunday afternoon, hoping to build on last week’s late win at home to Blackburn. Despite a spirited performance and a fairly solid display, it just wasn’t to be as Roman Pavlyunchenko’s strike was enough to give Spurs all three points.

Martin O’Neill resisted the temptation to start James McClean and stuck with an unchanged side. Wickham was upfront on his own again Bramble kept his place in defence. Our two naughty boys, Bendtner and Cattermole, had to settle for places on the bench. Luckily for us, there was no Gareth Bale for Spurs.

The game started fairly innocuously, there wasn’t much going for either side and the home team were more than happy to keep hold of the ball. That was until the tenth minute whenever Van Der Vaart hit a decent strike off Wes Brown’s back and out for a corner. We went straight up the pitch and Sess managed his usual lash over the bar from the edge of the box. It wasn’t much to get excited about but at least we were at the races.

Sunderland kept a high line with Sess, Wickham and Seb all pushing up the pitch whenever Tottenham had the ball. It sort of worked but at the same time, made it quite easy for Tottenham to get in behind the midfield. We limited them to long range efforts however and Sandro, who was wearing a gum shield, presumably because he’s soft a shite, fizzed one just past the left post. A little warning sign of the quality we were facing. A couple of minutes later, Westwood came out well to gather at the feet of Lennon.

After about twenty minutes we had our first spell of possession, unfortunately, O’Shea continued his recent hobby of passing the ball straight to anyone not wearing red and white. Bramble did well to cover up Sheasie’s mistakes.

On the half hour mark we received a stroke of luck, or so we thought. Aaron Lennon was played down the right and in his haste to beat Bardo to the ball; he pulled his hamstring and had to be replaced by Pavlyunchenko. The atmosphere changed a little bit, Spurs looked devoid of pace and ideas, perhaps this could be our day…

Rico, found himself in space and from 30 yards made Friedel stretch to gather one in the bottom corner. It was the test for either keeper in the rather drab opening. The next was a header from Larsson back to Westwood, almost over his head, but he did well to gather.

Then came a worrying moment for Wickham who appeared to twist his knee in a challenge, he looked badly hurt but managed to soldier on.

Finally the game opened up, Larsson found himself in space on the edge of the spurs box, he drilled a low cross past Friedel but just a little behind the on-rushing Rico who could do nothing. A great chance and one we’d regret missing. Spurs then went up the pitch and missed a similar chance before Seb had a great free kick saved by the Yank in Spurs’ goal and then Westwood managed to punch the ball off Pavlyunchenko and it went just wide. A frantic end to a largely dull half.

Worryingly Wickham had to be replaced by Bendtner at half time so keep an eye on ALS this week to see how he’s doing.

The second half started in complete contrast to the first, it was frantic and pacey. It didn’t take long for Vaughan to force a save from Friedel before a string of crosses from both sides resulted in nothing. Bramble again coping well with Spurs’ pressure.

Just as he did in the first, Van Der Vaart had an effort deflected wide by Wesley but it seemed to spark a spell of pressure from Spurs which lasted for almost the remainder of the game. Bardo forced Adebayor to head wide and we were getting lucky at times, we had lost our solid shape and the crowd smelled blood.

On 60minutes, Colback and Brown managed to lose possession between them and Van Der Vaart fed Pavlyunchenko who dispatched a good finish passed Westwood. How I wished we’d taken up our summer interest in him all of a sudden. To be honest it had been coming and we really didn’t look too smart at the time but there was still plenty of time to sort things out.

However, Spurs kept the pressure on and forced another couple of good chances. The most clear cut of which was Adebayor forcing a great save from Westwood for the ball to fall kindly to Modric who with an open goal, put it over from twelve yards, don’t miss that one on match of the day. We were really riding our luck.

On came last week’s revelation as James McClean replaced Phil Bardsley. We were going for all out pace and attack down the left it seemed. We did get back into it a little bit with McClean bombing down the wing any chance he got, if nothing else he was taking the pressure off.

Bendtner then found himself out wide with Gallas to beat, he managed and fired a tame shot at Friedel. Bendtner was poor again today, failing to look interested or get into the box, I really hope we can find someone who actually wants to try hard and play for the team in January, because he just doesn’t deserve to have the honour of playing for SAFC.

Colback, who had done little wrong apart from the goal and actually looked quite good today, was replaced by Gardner. However Spurs decided it was time to shut up shop and keep the ball. They did manage to win a free kick right on the edge of the box, in fact it could have been inside the box, I’m not sure. Van Der Vaart hit the wall.

We did manage one last chance with Sess and Bendtner playing a nice one two on the edge of the box, rather fittingly, Bendtner scuffed it comically wide. Spurs did well to keep the ball and one last cross from Larsson was well gathered by Friedel. All over.

Final Score: 1-0

ALS Man of the Match: Probably David Vaughan, he looked sharp and seemed to be controlling things anytime we went forward. Bramble was solid and Rico had another very good game on the wing. Sess was lively, Bendtner was not.

Adam Capper

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