View From The Away End: Burnley drama highlights Lads' resilience
Today at 06:49 AM
Two missed penalties and a gritty stalemate at Turf Moor show just how far Sunderland have come in their promotion push — but challenges lie ahead as they bounce back against Derby.
With the distraction of arguably the least inspiring FA Cup tie in history out of the way, we turned our sights to deepest, darkest Lancashire for a crucial top-of-the-table clash. It had been a pretty eventful fortnight since our last league game, with a high-profile new addition in Enzo Le Fée that even the most ardent Speakman sceptic would have to admit begrudgingly was an impressive coup. Much of the talk in the build-up to the game surrounded Burnley's ridiculous defensive record, which must be admired, but the footballing fare must also be tedious to sit through every week.
Despite being the only other unbeaten side at home in the league, Burnley's record at Turf Moor actually fades somewhat under closer inspection, with more than a couple of draws against middling or lower sides, so we definitely felt that our charges were fully capable of pulling out a positive result.
Our mid-afternoon train from Euston was mercifully quiet, and unlike most Avanti West Coast services it hadn't cost a small fortune, possibly thanks to the journey taking place in the eye of the depressing January storm, when the pre-Christmas payday is a distant memory and appetite for weekends away is low. There was no evidence of the January blues (or indeed Dry January) when we jumped on the jam-packed carriage at Manchester Victoria that would take us over to Burnley. My only previous trip here was the horrific 4-1 loss on New Year's Eve back in the Moyes season, complete with an Andre Gray hat-trick and merciless taunting from the locals. Surely tonight would at least be better than that.
Our pre-match meeting point of choice ended up being The Dubliner, where the pints were eye-wateringly cheap and the welcome surprisingly warm from the locals. Excitement built when we saw that Le Fée was in the starting XI, and we serenaded our new arrival as we queued up outside the ground. The "We've got X player, I just don't think you understand" chant is old hat by this point, but it'll do as a placeholder until one of the fanbase's creative geniuses comes up with something better.
The first half went more or less to script, with Burnley slightly edging possession but Sunderland staunchly defending our goal, as we have done in most of these crucial promotion clashes. There was plenty of noise from both sets of fans, and both sides missed decent opportunities throughout, but the real drama of course came in the closing stages. I've never been a fan of goading the home fans too much when a penalty is awarded, and Friday night underlined why. Flashbacks to Roberts's miss against Sheffield United went through our minds, as Trafford's shithousery went inexplicably unpunished by the referee, and Isidor's low effort was parried away.
That was hard enough to take on its own, but the second miss from the spot felt almost poetically cruel, like someone up there has it in for us. There have been so many great away trips this season but also so many gut-wrenching moments (think Mayenda's misses away to Blackburn and Stoke, Aleksic versus Millwall), and we just have to pray that these won't come back to bite us. The Burnley fans and players went wild in celebration, and you can understand why, but their joy at barely scraping a point at home to us was a little over the top, and really underlines just how far we have come.
To make matters worse, the only reasonably timed train back to Manchester was cancelled, though it did give us the chance to blow off some steam back at The Dubliner, where a few well-chosen tunes on the karaoke eventually managed to raise a smile. What would have otherwise been a very welcome and respectable point feels horribly tinged with disappointment; when someone in the pub asked what the score was, I heard a Sunderland fan sardonically reply that Burnley won 0-0.
There's no time to lick our wounds, and Tuesday night's trip to Derby offers an opportunity to quickly banish the bad taste from this game with a commanding performance. I just hope we don't have to endure a play-off penalty shootout in May, because even the most stoic of red and white hearts will struggle to take any more punishment like that.
