EPL Round 26: Sunderland AFC vs Wigan Athletic FC

By: Lucas | February 9th, 2008

I managed to make it out of bed and to the bar by approximately 6:55am, and there I was waiting with the hobos for the place to open. Giant flat screen TV and a cup of very mediocre coffee (one free refill only), and I’m ready to watch the boys take it to Wigan.

The back four looks to be taking regular shape, with Nyron Nosworthy and Jonny Evans in the middle and Danny Collins and Phil the Beast Bardsley on the outsides. With the midfield annihilated by injuries, Roy O’Donovan got a start, in the middle along with Dean Whitehead and Dickson Etuhu (fresh from his stint at the ACN), with Michael Chopra and Daryl Murphy on the flanks. Kenywne Jones all by himself up front.

The match starts and Sunderland immediately go on the attack. My coffee tastes like stale dishwater, but at least my table is wiped clean and the hobos aren’t making much noise yet. Good stuff with SAFC in control early, Murphy making a couple nice runs and O’Donovan heading just wide on 3 minutes.

Things settled down into a back and forth affair, neither side doing anything exciting, until 26 minutes when Roy Keane made a surprising decision to sub off O’Donovan in favor of Swede Rade Prica. I don’t know if young Roy was injured or if old Roy just didn’t like what he saw out of young Roy, but off young Roy came nonetheless.

Things settled down even more and were verging on boring, until I started to wonder if it was time for some excitement in the form of whiskey. I decided instead on the chicken fried steak, which was the most interesting thing I’d seen in 40 minutes; that and the birds strutting around Chris Kirkland’s 6-yard box.

Then Dickson Etuhu scored on a beauty header from a Dean Whitehead curling free kick; 42 minutes in and there were at least two Mackems here in Portland joining the 43,000 erupting in joy at the SOL. Before I could re-think the whiskey question in light of this new sensation of glee I was feeling, Emile Heskey, who looks to be about 50 years old now, nearly equalized at the other end, shooting just wide.

Kenwyne then made a run into the Wigan area, the ball went bounce bounce bounce and fell right on the foot of Rade Prica, 6 yards out with Kirkland hopelessly out of position. Prica proceeded to trip over the ball, which rolled gently to the Wigan keeper. This was the last time I heard the Swede’s name until he was given a stern talking-to by the referee midway through the second half for diving. For the second consecutive week Prica was a first half substitute, and for the second consecutive week he made very little of his appearance.

I thought the 1-0 halftime scoreline was deserved. Sunderland were hustling all over the pitch, and had a few periods of very nice attack; for the most part though their midfield passing was crap, only slightly better than Wigan’s.

The second half started and before I could say, “Yes I would like my one complimentary refill of your delicious truck stop coffee,” there was a Wigan shot, a Gordon block, and a rebound which was poked dangerously close to the Sunderland net. It looked to be going over and I probably would have muttered something like “damn!” but Deano saved the day, clearing the ball from the edge of disaster.

After that the Black Cats looked the better side for most of the second half. Murphy impressed me with his speedy runs, and the back line on the whole were solid (minus one or two WTF? moments vis-a-vis clearing the ball).

75 minutes and Chopra came off for new signing Andy Reid, fresh from the trainer’s table. There were doubts about his match fitness, as he came to SAFC with a damaged knee. Just when the hobos behind me were starting to get restless and I was wondering if this might be another case of a midfielder being rushed too soon into the lineup (I was also wondering if a beer might be a better option than diet coke at 8:15am), Reid sent a nice cross-field pass to Daryl Murphy, who took a couple touches and launched an absolute GOLAZO from 25 yards, into the top left corner off Kirkland’s fingertips. We said “Yay!” the hobos said “more free popcorn!” and things were looking very good for the Wearsiders.

There were a few touchy moments during the remaining 15 minutes, including a nice series of saves by Craig Gordon, and another disappointing showing from Rade Prica, who found himself 1-on-1 with a Wigan defender but showed no pace and couldn’t manage even a shot.

The whistles then whistled and Sunderland were the proud owner of three shiny new points. With four consecutive home wins, we’re back up to 14th place now, 4 points clear of the drop and only 2 behind that circus side show up the road. Said Roy Keane: “We got two good goals and a clean sheet so we’re fairly happy… I can’t praise the players enough. We’ve had our setbacks this season but they have kept going and it was a tough game today.” It’s a good day to be a Mackem!

Man of the Match: Daryl Murphy (not just for the uber goal, he was very tidy for most of the match), with honorable mention to Phil Bardsley and the back four.

Here are the truncated, low-fi highlights (complete with pleasant buzzing noise at the end):