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7 hours ago
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Top tier football is awash with motivational slogans and some are so trite that many players quite possibly ignore them. Yet Sunderland’s adopted motto – ‘TIL The End’ – has become so much more than just another piece of cod psychology. After sustaining them through last season’s successful playoff campaign it has morphed into a true mantra, encapsulating everything that is so refreshing about this impressively resilient team.
Thanks partly to Granit Xhaka’s superb on-field leadership from central midfield, Sunderland have developed a habit of recovering from losing positions. Here though they surpassed themselves, conjuring a memorable victory after swiftly falling 2-0 behind to a similarly determined, and talented, Bournemouth.
It is almost six years since Antoine Semenyo arrived at Sunderland, then managed by Phil Parkinson and in League One, on loan from Bristol City. That was in the January 2020 transfer window and the young winger barely had time to get going before the Covid pandemic struck and he returned to Bristol.
Semenyo, now very much Bournemouth’s star player, hit the ground running in the incessant, and torrential rain, cascading down on Wearside. Seven minutes were on the clock when his sublime low cross prefaced Evanilson’s shot hitting a post, leaving Amine Adli to lash the rebound beyond Robin Roefs.
Eight minutes later, Bournemouth doubled their advantage courtesy of a 40-yard lob from Tyler Adams.
It was a strong goal of the season contender but did not completely undermine Sunderland. They had started quite well, running through a pleasing repertoire of slick, defender de-stabilising pass and move cameos, but sometimes looked fragile in the face of Bournemouth’s capacity for rapid counterattacking.
Two-nil though can be a notoriously tricky scoreline for teams to protect and, sure enough, Bournemouth’s cushion suffered a 30th-minute deflation. When Reinildo, schooled in plenty of streetwise arts during his time playing under Diego Simeone at Atlético Madrid, flicked out a leg in the penalty area, the left-back invited Alex Scott to foul him.
Scott duly walked into the trap and Tim Robinson, the referee, pointed immediately to the penalty spot. Once that decision had survived a video assistant referee review, Enzo Le Fée stepped forward and, in lifting his kick into the top left hand corner, afforded Djordje Petrovic no hope of making a save.
Dark arts were at play as the Reinildo and Scott subplot took another twist when Reinildo, aware Scott had already been booked, attempted to earn the midfielder a second yellow card by running across his path and precipitating an inevitable collision. Robinson was not buying it.
TAt the outset of the second half when, at the conclusion of a patient build up, Xhaka’s clever reverse pass permitted Bertrand Traoré to squeeze an angled near post shot through a tangle of legs and beneath Petrovic.
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When a slick Semenyo manoeuvre led to Evanilson stabbing the latter’s deflected, and apparently already goal-bound, shot past Roefs it seemed Sunderland’s hard-won parity had been short-lived but an offside flag against Evanilson came to their rescue.
Sunderland made the most of that reprieve. They took the lead when Brian Brobbey, who had just replaced Wilson Isidor, connected with a fabulous Le Fée corner and delighted in punishing Petrovic with the resultant, emphatic, header.
Although Marcus Tavernier’s 25-yard shot rattled the woodwork Bournemouth failed to recover as Xhaka took every available opportunity to slow the game down. With their frustration evident, Lewis Cook was shown a stoppage-time red card for elbowing Noah Sadiki in the face.
With trips to Liverpool and Manchester before Newcastle visit the Stadium of Light on 14 December it is no exaggeration to say this was a potentially season-defining win.
