Anything Liverpool can do, Sunderland can equal. Well ok so this was Wolviston not Besiktas and it wasn’t the Champions League it was the almost as illustrious Newton Moor Durham County Challenge Cup (2 nd round, mind you) but the lads won 8-0 and it could have been more but for Jamie Lawrence in the Wolviston goal.

Bob Paisley would have been purring just as much at Andrew Cole’s masterclass if he’d been stood watching from his ‘home ground’ at Eppleton as he would if he’d been standing his adopted home watching the Scousers torturing the Turks.

If you thought Cole was here to pick up a nice fat pay-packet and spin out his time, think again though. Cole be it against Wearside League opposition or not, on a freezing cold night in Hetton, dropped in, held up, laid off often with just one sublime touch, often without breaking stride and almost as often created a clear run on goal for a team mate without breaking sweat and usually without having to do anything more than jog a few yards. Sometimes you have to see a player in the flesh and admittedly not playing for a team you dislike with a passion that’s almost illegal to appreciate utter class. If like me you used to watch Steve Bould for Arsenal and thought he was kinda ok until he turned up at the Stadium of Light and you found out that actually he was sublime, this was similar albeit against non-league opposition.

What you did between 1992 and 1995, Andrew, will all be forgiven and forgotten if you can replicate tonight’s performance, in the first team, for the rest of the season and talking of those muppets up the road, if you can come off the bench on Saturday and effect the game like you did tonight, you’ll be a legend in red and white.

Anyhow, more of Cole to come. Our other returning first team, Carlos Edwards, opened the scoring on ten minutes. The move started with Cole’s sublime touch to Edwards whose ball out to youngster Luscombe was returned and with the keeper unable to get enough of a touch on it the on-rushing Carlos converted from all of a yard.

Two minutes later Peter Hartley rose to head home, although it may have taken a slight touch off a defender’s head on the way in (sorry but there’s nee replays at Hetton). Yet another sublime touch from Andrew Cole sent Martyn Waghorn through to fire home on 18 minutes and two minutes later Wags doubled his tally when a mix up between keeper and defender saw the ball drop kindly for him to convert low and hard from 14 yards.

Cole’s absence from the first team picture may have more behind it then we were lead to believe as we noted a huge lump in the back of one of his socks. Clearly it could only have been an electronic tag and he must be out ‘on licence’ now, having served the majority of his sentence (perhaps for crimes against football, circa 1992-1995) but if it was a tracking device then it certainly wasn’t giving any of the Wolviston lads any clues as to his whereabouts as he repeatedly lost his marker and ran the show.

Whilst the score-line may imply a dodgy-keeper, in fact Jamie Lawrence (but not he of genuine prison records) deserved a great deal of credit for a number of good saves including one from Waghorn shortly after the half hour mark and another from Carlos just minutes later.

Three minutes from the end of the first period, Nathan Luscombe let fly from 25 yards to make it five after good work again from, how did you guess (?) that man Old King Cole. Lawrence again kept the score down a minute from half time doing well to stop Luscombe’s shot and from Dennehy’s free kick.

H/T 5-0

Seventy seconds after the restart Andrew Cole got his first red and white goal coolly slotting home after a cut back from Carlos. He may have only been eight yards out but there wasn’t much of a gap between the post, keeper and defender but Cole slotted home effortlessly.

Five minutes later a Big Ron spotter’s badge in the form of a 25 yard rocket from the boot of Gav Donoghue made it seven. Peter Hartley was then guilty of a moment of petulance, identical to that shown in the Manchester City reserve match, kicking the ball away after fouling a man - which at 7-0 up doesn’t make him a likely candidate for joining Peter Snow on Brain of Britain (don’t worry if you haven’t heard of that, it clashes with Match of the Day).

Bang on the hour, and as per Mr Keane’s instructions, Cole and the impressive Edwards were withdrawn along with Colback for Weir, (Jake) Richardson and David Dowson. The withdrawal of Edwards must have been no loss to the visitors number three who was tormented first half and could have been sent off for persistent fouls but very much to his credit had a very good second half after many of us thought he would have to be substituted to avoid being sent off. His excellent second half performance was topped off by his gold medal quality sledging of Edwards for merely rattling the post early in the second half when he should have scored, despite being given a complete run around for the first 45 minutes. Class!

The visiting, keeper then produced more good saves from Waghorn and Dowson before the latter was put through to make it eight. It took until the 88th minute for Wolviston to have a serious strike on goal but Carson did what good keepers do and saved well after having precious little to do all match, if only that had applied at the City of Manchester Stadium on Monday.

Full Time: Sunderland Reserves 8-0 Wolviston

Sunderland: Carson, Kay (cpt), Dennehy, Hartley, Donoghue, Chandler, Edwards (Weir), Colback (J Richardson), Cole (Dowson), Waghorn, Luscombe.

Subs Unused: none (only three named)

Man of the Match: Andrew Cole (just in case you weren’t sure)

Attendance: 879

Dov