On this day in 2023 Sunderland and Hull City played what would turn out to be a Championship classic that featured eight goals and a last minute penalty equaliser for the away side. Here's Sobs' match report from that day.
The Lads welcomed 'Ull to Wearside, and in a proper catfight (Black Cats, Tigers...), shared the points and eight goals in a pretty frantic and madcap evening. I believe it’s the first 4-4 I’ve seen us play, and it came as Gelhardt, Clarke, and Amad (2) scored as the game went 0-1, 1-1, 2-1. 2-2 (halftime) 2-3,3-3, 4-3, 4-4 (with the last kick).
While the points return might have been the same as last Friday, the scoreline and the game were the polar opposite as both sides went for the kill from the off. The TV must love us, and that match will do nothing to put them off changing more kick-off times in the future. Double edged sword or what?
Sort of fresh from our fine performance at Burnley - a game which brought not only a point but also no suspensions and no injuries worth mentioning - Mogga could add Cirkin and Pritch to his squad. I was in a fine predictive mood to pick the side, having correctly described exactly what Brazil Ladies' captain would do with her penalty, and how their star player would take hers. It being Good Friday, I had plenty of time for selection as our bus set off at the usual time of noon. We decided that I should include modern football terms such as high press, counter press, turnover, power play, and inverted wingers in today’s report - but I won't.
The Tigers have injuries of their own, with World Cup "star" and taker of the worst penalty Patto's faced (sorry, lay down and watched trundle harmlessly wide) missing, so the had to try some new blood. Apparently the transport to away games has been free lately, a nice gesture from their new regime to get fans back onside after a fractious atmosphere had developed. A bit like that between today's ref, Keith Stroud, and our lot after giving us 22 yellows and two reds in eleven games he's reffed.
Anyway, I was correct with my team selection as we lined up, in the stripes and red shorts:
Patterson
Hume Batth O’Nien Gooch
Neil Michut
Roberts Amad Clarke
Gelhardt
..and a bench of Bass, Ekwah, Lihadji, Anderson, Pritchard, Ba, and Cirkin
They must have won the toss, as we kicked off North towards their sizeable visiting contingent, which I don’t like, but the game was quickly into its stride, with Clarke showing early intent by nicking it off his fullback and bursting forward and getting it inside to Amad. His natural reaction was to find his marra Roberts, which he did, but the low one across the face of goal wasn’t close enough for Joff to poke home at the back post. A promising start, nonetheless, but we needed Luke to be on his toes when Patto didn’t deal with a situation well.
With Hull struggling to get any sustained possession, Roberts again just failed to find Joff and Gooch could only put his effort well off target – cross or shot, your guess is as good as mine. In typical Sunderland style, we then went behind when Hull robbed us in the middle and broke forward for Tufan to hit a belter high into the net. I don’t think two Pattos would have stopped that, but, with eleven minutes gone and having had the bulk of possession, there was plenty of time to put things right.
While that was true, the goal had naturally given the visitors a bit of a lift and they nearly doubled their advantage when they got behind Gooch and their man hit the low cross over the top. Haway Lads, get it up the other end – which we did, but again it was Hull who got the next effort in, bringing a great save from young Anth. However, it was from our next attack that things started to go our way.
Ten minutes after going behind, Clarke was away again, galloping in and out down the left to pass it into the box to Amad’s feet. The little fella went through a tackle to return it to Clarke, and the hard’n’low was belted in by Joff. Mayhem in the stands, but that was nothing to the mayhem a minute later when we were back in the Tigers’ box and this time Amad whacked it away. 22 minutes gone, we went wild, and Brian, hereinafter to be known as The Prophet, said “I can see eight in this one.”
For a whole three minutes we controlled things as the crowd urged the Lads to make things safe (as if, with well over an hour still to play!) as they piled forward. When Hull again caught us out, Patto made a decent save but was powerless to keep out the follow up from a narrow angle, scored by the bloke with the really long name from a the narrowest of angles. Still only 25 minutes played. Crazy game so far, but after a half-hearted shout for a penalty when Amad fell over, it sort of settled into normality for the last fifteen of the half as the players seemed to take a bit of a breather and slow things down – just a bit. Both defences started to prevent attackers getting into the boxes rather than aiding and abetting them, and the closest we came was an overlapping Luke putting his cross (ort shot) the wrong side of the post. The three added minutes brought nothing of note, and we had the break in which to come up with a way to win the game.
There were no changes for the second half, so the gaffer obviously thought we had the men on the field to sort things out in our favour. Hull’s tactics had changed to include sustaining questionable head injuries, but we created the first chance when Neil, who’d really grown into the game, played a great one to Amad just outside the box, but he tried to work the perfect position when a quicker shot could have brought rewards. Bloody perfectionist! It was turning into a repeat of the game’s first ten minutes as we dominated things, and went close when we won a free kick which was cleared, but only as far as Neil, lurking twenty yards out. He struck it well enough on the volley, but it dropped the wrong wide of the post as we made ready to celebrate Another free, on the right, saw Clarke jog across to take it, and his effort was right on Batth’s head but the keeper’s hands were in the right place to prevent our third.
Twenty minutes in to the half, Hume tried to shield the ball out of play in the box, but did “a Corner” (sorry, David) and failed to do so, allowing their man to whack in a shot from a ridiculous angle the beat Patto and smacked in off the bar at the back. Haway man, Trai – learn from that. However, six minutes later we were awarded a penalty as Clarke galloped into the side of the box and went down. Sight of the video replay have shown that if it was any softer it would have been a marshmallow, but Amad kept his cool to smack the spot-kick home and draw us level – although the keeper did get a hand to it just to add to the drama. That was 3-3 in case you’d lost count.
Soon after, on came Pritch and Ekwah for Joff, who’d had a fine evening, and Michut, who’d complemented Neil well. Understandable changes as the boss probably thought beefing up the centre and adding Pritch’s dead ball skills could win it. The latter was straight to work, setting up Clarke to cut it to Hume – but Darlow produced a worldie to keep the shot out as young Trai sought to atone for his earlier error. Two minute later, we really thought we’d won it when Roberts went down the right to find Amad, and he teed up Clarke who simply passed it into the net. Absolute bedlam in the seats with only nine minutes to go – surely the game was safe now? It should really have been a couple of minutes later when Amad repeated the teeing-up trick, but this time Clarke shot wildly over the top. Damn.
While the lead was only the one goal, we were off our feet and chewing our nails as the minutes ticked by. Five added were announced, probably a result of all those dubious head injuries Hull had suffered, and in the last of those the visitors came into the right hand corner of our box and Ekwah showed his inexperience by not “standing his man up” (a football term I will use) and diving in with a challenge as reckless as it was obvious. No question, a penalty, so Luke developed cramp and needed treatment to give Hull time to worry about taking the shot.
It didn’t work, although Patto was inches from getting his hand to it as he dived low to his right. 4-4, last kick of the game, in the eighth minute of stoppage time – the extra three coming as Luke was treated. Nice try, Smooch.
Even possession overall, eighteen shots to their nine, seven on target each, only one corner (to us) in the whole game, and, again, no bookings for us. It almost certainly kills off any play-off hopes we might have had, so all we can do now is finish as high as we can and enjoy playing football and entertaining the fans as we do so.
Oh, and the ref wasn’t that bad at all, all things considered.
Man of the Match? A good game from Neil, and two goals from Amad, but for me it was the marauding Clarke who gets the nod.
