Matchday Musings: Sunderland see off Sheffield Utd in a lively 2025 opener!
01/02/2025 01:00 AM
Régis Le Bris' decision to stick with Eliezer Mayenda was vindicated as the Spaniard played a key role for the Lads. Malc Dugdale looks back at a Championship cracker at the Stadium of Light!
Even before a ball had been kicked, there were a myriad of thoughts inside my head when reviewing the team sheet an hour before kick off.
Why was Eliezer Mayenda still being persisted with when he'd missed so many fantastic chances to score in recent games? Why had Milan Aleksić been dropped to the bench when he made such a good impression in the last game?
Whatever the real answers were to those questions, you have to say that Régis Le Bris got it bang on against the Blades on New Year's night.
Setting up in a 4-4-2 to match the Yorkshire visitors and using Mayenda and the team as we did, it was a stroke of genius that was very well executed by the lads in red and white.
Looking back on it, this win shows us all that the faith that the coach puts in players like Mayenda simply has to be trusted. The lad was close to unplayable, and against a team who were in the Premier League last season.
The first half quickly showcased our intentions, to use our pace and counter attacking abilities with through balls into space to apply pressure at the right times and get what we could out of the contest.
Within the first ten minutes, we forced their goalkeeper to make saves at the front post more than once, but when Luke O'Nien was blown up for pulling back Kieffer Moore in a carbon copy of an incident which got us nothing for Chris Mepham in the last game, I did worry that we may be in trouble and having to come from behind yet again.
Thankfully, the combination of a poor strike by Moore and a good save by Anthony Patterson kept it at 0-0. In many ways, that save really rallied the Lads, and the fans encouraged the Black Cats to kick on, too.
Despite some decidedly dodgy dribbling in the six yard box from Patterson moments earlier, our approach and pressure paid off a few minutes before the half hour mark, when a sliced clearance by the Sheffield Utd defence was brilliantly pounced on by Mayenda, who coolly accelerated towards goal and drilled it past the keeper.
Given the issues the lad has had with scoring of late and the impact this must've had on his confidence, it was an amazing finish and I'm sure every red and white fan in the country and around the globe was over the moon for him.
The half continued with more chances for us, and Adil Aouchiche was very unlucky not to score when yet another pacy counter caught the visitors out.
That missed chance was then rubbed in our faces when a drilled cross deflected across our box and was put into our own net by none other than O'Nien.
He was certainly making a mark on his 100th Championship appearance, and 1-1 within five minutes or so of us scoring wasn't great. However, what was great was the fact that we then went up the other end and scored the best goal of the evening, putting our errors behind us pretty much immediately.
Mayenda went from scorer to provider and fed a great pass to Isidor after bursting away on the 35th minute. Isidor used all his guile and pace to beat the very capable Anel Ahmedhodžić, finishing beautifully into the far bottom corner to send the stadium into a limb-fest of epic proportions.
Mayenda had another half chance before the break but he pulled his shot just wide of the left hand post. Despite that, the Lads completed what was in my view our strongest first half of football for some weeks, if not months.
We gave away a penalty and scored an own goal, but it was still an amazing forty five minutes and I couldn't wait for the second half, and nor could anyone else!
The second half started as the first finished- with chances.
A great ball clipped in by Aouchiche a couple of minutes in missed Isidor by the width of a cigarette paper, denying us a third goal which may have put the game almost to bed before five minutes of the second period had passed.
The game then became a full-on demonstration of what Le Bris had asked the Lads to do for the second period: let United way more of the ball but don't sit too deep, to go for a third if we could.
This worked quite well for large parts of the half with more chances coming for Mayenda on the 66th and 77th minute; the latter being denied by their goalkeeper spreading himself well and Mayenda shooting too close to his body.
Jobe and Aouchiche got involved in other chances and breaks too, but the killer instinct we had in the first half had lost a little of its sharpness- understandable, given the pace and 'to and fro' nature of the game.
With six minutes to hold on plus stoppages, we brought on Leo Hjelde for Aouchiche and survived a few very scary moments.
With Patterson typifying our performance by bravely diving to collect among flying boots in the 94th minute, we held on very well and secured all three points.
As mentioned earlier, we really stepped up for this game, as we often do when teams come and want to play the game we love. The only goal we conceded was an own goal, and we even avoided going behind to a penalty.
We came out of the starting blocks quicker than we have in a lot of recent games, not letting the opposition get a hold of the game for a moment, For me, this was a key factor in our success against Chris Wilder and his team.
We created loads of chances and converted a couple, but if we'd scored one or two more, I don't think Sheffield Utd could've moaned. Our approach and the execution of it was top class, and seeing the frustrated face of Wilder and his team in the final minutes said it all.
The automatic promotion spots are well and truly on for us now. Let's grab one soon and hold on as long as we can, as we're clearly good enough to go up when we play and strategise as we can.
How good are we going to be when we get all our injured players back? I can't wait to find out.
