Sunderland 1 Manchester C 0:ROBERTO MANCINI must have regretted not bringing his comforting blue and white woolly scarf to a cold and windy Wearside on an afternoon which hinted at harsh winter travails ahead.
It ended with Steve Bruce performing a wonderfully uncoordinated dance of joy in front of the Manchester City dugout after Darren Bent’s stoppage-time penalty had not only secured Sunderland’s first Premier League win of the season but left Mancini’s side trailing Chelsea by five points.
No one can dismiss a club’s title chances after three games but the City manager’s gloomy countenance suggested defeat here for a match-day squad assembled at a cost of more than €320 million was most definitely unscheduled.
“We played the best first-half football,” said Mancini, still shaking his head in the wake of an appalling early miss from Carlos Tevez. Sure enough, his players began by outclassing Bruce’s defensively configured ensemble, yet ultimately found themselves undone by their hosts’ high second-half tempo.
“We had three or four chances but if you don’t score you don’t win,” City’s manager said. “It’s hard when teams have 10 men pulled behind the ball – but we made it too easy for them after half-time.”
The two faces of Yaya Toure summed up City’s afternoon. Initially imperious, the towering midfielder seemed to wither in the face of Sunderland’s rebirth.
While Lee Cattermole and Jordan Henderson had begun closing Toure down with real zeal, Ahmed Elmohamady, dubbed Egypt’s David Beckham, was living up to that vaunted reputation and duly forced Joe Hart into his first save of the game with a curling 66th-minute cross-shot.
Then, deep in injury-time, another of Elmohamady’s teasing centres provoked defensive panic. It prompted Micah Richards to flatten Bent and the lone striker’s consequent, somewhat iffy penalty was squeezed under Hart’s body, thereby becoming the first goal City had conceded this season. Cue Bruce’s gleeful jig.
Deemed “under pressure” after poor performances against Birmingham City and West Brom, Sunderland’s manager was delighted, yet puzzled by his fickle side’s chameleon persona.
“Was that the same team as last week?” mused a manager whose decision to recall the previously frozen out Anton Ferdinand was rewarded with a strong performance from the impressively quick defender, first at right-back and then alongside the excellent Titus Bramble at centre-half.
“We can’t win away and yet we can raise ourselves for big games here,” Bruce said. “It’s a problem but this was a great performance and, defensively, we were excellent. I don’t know whether City will be good enough to be champions but they’ll certainly be there or thereabouts.”
Even the best strikers can spurn sitters and Tevez was left in early head-in-hands mode after his attempt to dink the ball into an empty net went disastrously wrong after Yaya Toure had steamrollered Sunderland aside.
Having blocked Kieran Richardson’s attempted shot he initiated a thrilling counterattack. Shrugging off Cattermole’s tackle while advancing more than half the length of the pitch, Toure eventually slipped the ball adroitly to the unmarked Tevez who, with Simon Mignolet way off his line, seemed certain to score.
“We rode our luck,” Bruce said, referring to a reprieve that was potentially a watershed.
“I don’t think Tevez will ever miss a chance like that again but we’d spent all week working on stopping City.”
Despite some clever breaks and refreshingly inventive first-half passing from City, Bruce’s five-man midfield proved an obdurate barrier, largely restricting Mancini’s men to half-chances – even if Mignolet did save well from Yaya Toure.
The tide turned after the break. As City increasingly risked throwing bodies forward, Danny Welbeck missed three decent openings which might have been rued had Mignolet not brilliantly repelled Emmanuel Adebayor’s late volley.
It was so enthralling hardly any fans made early, traffic-beating, getaways and such stickability was richly rewarded by Bent’s late reminder that money does not always buy success.
