The Black Cats moved (temporarily) up to sixth with a great 2-1 win over West Brom at the SoL.
After a first half overshadowed by poor refereeing decisions, goals from Dans Ballard and Neil in the second half guaranteed the points despite a late Brandon Thomas-Asante goal for the Baggies.
It was an important game in the play off race with the visitors starting the day in 5th and the Black Cats sitting in 9th just three points outside of the top six. West Brom were in good form having won three of their last five fixtures and only suffering two narrow defeats at the hands of Southampton and Leicester in that period. Sunderland meanwhile had picked up just one win in their last five, which had resulted in the sacking of Tony Mowbray. The pressure was very much on us then.
The first real chance of the game fell to Sunderland when Luke O’Nien fired an audacious volleyed attempt from outside the box which looped but not enough to see it go under the bar.
Shortly after, the ex-player curse nearly struck us again. Josh Maja was through on goal deep inside the box but a last ditch challenge by Ballard prevented the Nigerian international from getting his shot away.
It should have been 1-0 to Sunderland as Jobe Bellingham had a tap in after Alex Palmer spilled an initial effort on goal. Replays clearly showed that the attack was onside but the linesman thought different and it was ruled out.
We then had a penalty claim denied. Patrick Roberts wonderfully charged into the box and the West Brom defence seemingly deliberately fouled him to prevent a certain goal. No penalty and the referee seemed eager to wave it away without any thought.
Jack Clarke struck the ball goal bound from inside the box after a free kick on the left hand side of the box as Sunderland continued to dominate affairs.
Ballard was shown the first yellow of the day. The Northern Irishman was punished for a crunching tackle on Josh Maja which ended with him being forced off with an injury. In fairness based on replays it probably should have been a red, but given how lenient the officials were being up to this point it’s no wonder it wasn’t.
At half time it was 0-0. It should have been 1-0 with that wrongful offside decision and we should have been awarded a penalty but in complete fairness Ballard was also lucky to be on the pitch. However we also hadn’t created a lot of clear cut chances so if you remove the offside goal it was probably a fair score line going into the break.
The first two major actions of the second half were yellow cards. Sarmiento was shown one for a terrible foul on Roberts and then a few minutes later Jayson Molumby was in the book for dragging back Clarke.
Unluckily the score remained 0-0. Aouchiche struck the inside of the post and a follow up effort by Clarke went just wide of the post. Hopefully this would be a sign that SAFC’s continual pressure would eventually pay off.
Clarke really should have scored a few minutes later. Alex Pritchard (who had replaced a very good Aouchiche) forced Palmer to palm away a cross and Clarke was there but managed to put it wide. Two almost for Sunderland in very quick succession.
Finally Sunderland had the lead after 70 minutes. Pritchard whipped in a free kick on the right hand side of the box and Ballard was at the near post to head it just beyond the reach of a fully outstretched Palmer hand. 1-0.
Cedric Kipre became the next man on the booked list after he fouled Roberts.
Pritchard got his second assist of the afternoon. He did well to capitalise on a trip by a West Brom defender and he passed to Neil. Neil ran forward and performed a fantastic chip to surely wrap up the three points after 85 minutes.
We never like to make it easy for ourselves as just a minute later Thomas-Asante got the visitors straight back into the game after he headed home a Pipa cross.
The goal scorer for the Baggies was then booked for a foul on Pritchard and in the dying moments Pipa brought down Ballard and was also shown a yellow.
There was a scary moment where it looked like O'Nien brought down one of their attackers for a penalty, but we saw it out in the end.
Full time: Sunderland 2-1 West Bromwich Albion
Sunderland XI: Patterson, Huggins, Ballard, O’Nien, Hume, Neil, Ekwah, Roberts, Aouchiche, Clarke, Bellingham
Subs: Bishop, Burstow, Rusyn, Ba, Pritchard, Seelt, Triantis, Dack, Mayenda
West Brom XI: Palmer, Furlong, Kipre, Bartley, Townsend, Molumby, Mowatt, Diangana, Swift, Sarmiento, Maja
ALS Man of the Match - Alex Pritchard: Came on and changed the game with two assists. Shoutout to Aouchiche who played well before being replaced by Pritch.
