On this day in 2016, Big Sam’s Sunderland went to Wales and Jermain Defoe scored a hat trick in a game shrouded by referee controversy.
Going into the game the lads were on an awful run of form - we had beaten Villa 3-1 the day after New Years Day, but prior to that we had lost five straight league matches.
We were 19th in the league but Big Sam, current England international Jermain Defoe and midfield maestro Yann M’Vila were instilling some much-needed belief into the club, and the foundations of a good side were there.
The 900 Sunderland fans who’d travelled to Swansea on a cold Wednesday night in January (rearranged at short-notice) soon had something to shout about, as just minutes after kickoff Lukasz Fabianski inexplicably passed a goal kick to one of our players, and after the ‘keeper parried the first shot Defoe was there to pounce on the rebound. Replays would show that Defoe was a mile offside, but this was before the days of VAR and just the first in a long line of mistakes the officials would make on this Wednesday night.
On the 20 minute mark Andre Ayew should have been booked for diving. He broke into the box and swung a wild foot at the ball, but air-kicked completely and fell over. The ref thought Wes Brown had tripped him and blew for a penalty - although replays would show that Ayew clearly tripped over his own feet. Gylfi Sigurdsson confidently converted the spot-kick, much to Allardyce's visible fury on the touchline.
And if the two opening goals were controversial, Kyle Naughton’s red card was enough to send the home fans into a fit of rage. The defender won the ball from Yann M’Vila (whose screams were heard from the away end) but because his studs were showing, referee Graham Scott showed a straight red. Interim Swansea manager Alan Curtis claimed Scott got "all the major incidents wrong", adding Naughton "clearly won the ball". Upon reflection, I think VAR may agree with the referee on this one, Alan…
The home team responded well though with Ayew latching onto Fabianski’s long ball, beating Lee Cattermole in the box with ease and slamming home a powerful effort. In ‘proper Sunderland’ fashion, we had conceded just a minute after the opposition had a man sent off…
So half time came and it was 2-1 to Swansea. Alan Curtis waited to confront the ref during the interval, after so many high-profile errors in the first half.
We kicked off again for the second half and within five minutes, we were back level. Patrick Van Aanholt’s right-footed shot took a slight deflection off Federico Fernandez and flew straight into the top corner. The Dutchman was slightly unlucky that after the game, the Dubious Goals Committee (boo) took the goal off him, as they had done a week earlier against Villa.
With an extra man on the pitch we pushed for a third, playing some good football and defending resolutely. Swansea looked ragged and our third goal felt inevitable at this point. Jermain Defoe made a clever run and was slipped in behind the defence, who stood still and appealed for offside. He had the freedom of Wales to take his time one-on-one and coolly dispatched past Fabianski. Again, replays would show he was offside. Again, we didn’t care.
Our victory was sealed when Van Aanholt set up Defoe for a tap-in to make it a hat trick. The win meant we would leapfrog the Mags into 18th, just a point behind Swansea. While Big Sam had a win on his 450th Premier League game, Alan Curtis took a defeat in his first game since being given the job until the end of the season.
Of course, we would go on to relegate Newcastle that season. What happened after that? Don’t worry about it. Sam Allardyce stayed with Sunderland, we didn’t hire David Moyes, and we stayed in the Premier League for a long, long time…
