OTD: MAN UTD 0-1 SAFC (2014)

On this day in 2014, Sunderland went to Old Trafford and came away with a massive three points which turned out to be crucial in Gus’ Great Escape.

We went into this one on the back of some good form which had pretty much come out of nowhere. After depressing defeats to Spurs (5-1) and Everton (1-0) Gus claimed we needed a miracle to stay up. Alas, that sparked a run of matches where we earned: a draw at Man City - and were agonisingly close to victory - before giving Mourinho his first ever Premier League defeat at Stamford Bridge in 78 games, then smashing relegation rivals Cardiff 4-0 at the SoL.

Gus Poyet named an unchanged side for the trip to Manchester, against a home team who were seeking revenge after our famous semi-final shootout win in the League Cup. By May, David Moyes had been sacked and Ryan Giggs was in the dugout on a temporary basis. They were sorely lacking Wayne Rooney’s presence through illness/injury, whilst we lined up as follows:

Mannone

Vergini O’Shea Brown Alonso

Larsson Cattermole Colback

Johnson Wickham Borini

It was a bit of a scrappy start to the game, with Sunderland trying to build-up using neat passing sequences and keeping possession like Poyet preferred. We couldn’t really get anything going, although this was also largely the case for United. They got the ball forward quickly and put in plenty of crosses but with no end product. Nani flashed one chance over the bar and Vito denied Evra from close range.

On the half-hour mark, the man in form Connor Wickham was basically trapped by the corner flag but impressively managed to shift his body and produce a peach of a cross into the box. It was met by Seb Larsson, who was rushing into the box to produce a sweet finish into the bottom corner.

1-0, and something to hold onto!

The Lads managed to contain Giggs’ side til half time, our defence marshalled expertly by the duo of Brown and O’Shea. They received a lot of criticism during their time here, due to their age and their lack of pace when playing together, but it was games like this where their value really shone through. Wes Brown was a man mountain at the back.

Within five minutes of the restart, Giggs had introduced Adnan Januzaj for Nani, and midway through the second half Robin van Persie and Danny Welbeck were on too. However, Sunderland almost profited from the home side's commitment to attack. Our subs Altidore and Giaccherini linked up with, with the USA forward firing a low cross into the path of the Italian. His first-time effort was similar to Larsson’s but struck the outside of the post.

We did end up dropping deeper as the game went on but our defence stood strong and dealt with the countless crosses and low balls into the box. There was a rare attack for us late in the game, a slick passing move that ended with Borini smashing the bar from the edge of the box.

The clock ticked down and eventually Howard Webb blew for full time, our first league win at Old Trafford since 1968. Three victories in a row for Sunderland after being written off by everyone just a few games prior, and survival was almost a certainty at this point. We were now three points clear of Norwich and also had a 13-goal swing on them. We had West Brom and Swansea both to play at home, whereas they had Chelsea and Arsenal.

Norwich would play Chelsea on the Sunday and did manage to grind out a 0-0 draw at the Bridge to keep a sliver of hope, but when we beat WBA on Wednesday night it mathematically ensured our place in the Premier League, thus completing the Great Escape.