MAGS 0-3 SAFC (2014)

Ahead of our trip to the dark side on Sunday, we thought we'd look back at some of the famous victories Sunderland have had over Newcastle United in their own backyard.

On 1st February 2014, Sunderland made it three derby wins in a row against the Mags, completing the double for the season. It was a game in which we were completely dominant and Liam Bridcutt, on his debut, played the best game he ever had in a red and white shirt. Even Jack Colback played well. Truly, a unique day in Sunderland history.

The press made a big deal about the Mags losing Yohan Cabaye a week before, who left for Paris Saint-Germain, despite the constant threat to Mike Ashley from the Geordies that there would be an ominous 'riot on his hands'. The riot never ensued and, at the final whistle, Tyneside was more impotently angry when compared to the year before, where they took to smashing up their own city and harassing police animals. There was no kangaroo court in which the cockney owner was asked to answer for the crime of keeping Newcastle financially solvent, instead only boos rang out around the stadium, a couple of morons ran onto the pitch and a handful of season tickets were thrown limply in the general direction of the pitch. All dejection at St James' Park was drowned out by our 2,000 strong away end’s jubilation.

In the absence of the French midfielder, the dynamic midfield duo of Colback and Bridcutt were able to dominate, with Bridcutt keeping play tidy and cutting out Hatem Ben Arfa’s forward passing in his role protecting the back four and Colback (as well as Ki Sung-yeung) had licence to get forward, which they did generally very well. Our first goal came courtesy of a penalty, dispatched by the in form loanee Fabio Borini. A great piece of play down the right resulted in a penalty, by a clumsy Vernon Anita tackle. Borini, composed, looked as if he shared a joke with the referee, placed the ball down and coolly rifled a penalty into the top corner. Cue the Italian's trademark celebration, before running to the home fans and jumping on the advertising barrier, arms outstretched, screaming. Italian's do tend to get quite passionate in this fixture.

With such boisterous celebration, it could’ve looked bad if the game had a chance of panning out differently but the result was never really in doubt, as Newcastle were so, so poor on the day. There was more neat attacking play for our second of the afternoon, Jozy Altidore flicked the ball on to Colback and his parried shot was tapped in. 23 minutes in and it was pretty much plain sailing, we looked a different side compared to other first halves throughout the 2013/14 season.

Newcastle brought Sammy Ameobi off at the break in what was the first game he had started with his brother, Shola Ameobi. Must’ve been nice for them. The pretty crap, and obviously unfit, Luuk De Jong came on, with the Mags having seriously lacklustre attacking reinforcements on the bench. However, it must be said we didn’t have the best of substitutes that day either; Ignacio Scocco, Oscar Ustari and Santiago Vergini were all on the bench, thank God they weren't needed. Sebastian Larsson and Craig Gardner did come on to see the game out, which was pretty easy considering the game was over as a contest.

The game had been put to bed when Ben Arfa was dispossessed by Colback and the ginger maestro laid it off to Borini and received it back, duly sliding the ball beyond Tim Krul. It was a game in which our most average players flourished, Jozy was a handful all game and came close to actually scoring (really!) and Colback and Bridcutt were brilliant. Mannone was relatively untroubled, forced into one save by Cheick Tiote. Overall a great day for everyone concerned with Sunderland.