by Roger Domeneghetti
at the Stadium of Light

What a difference two weeks make. The Sunderland players were cheered from the pitch after they beat local rivals Newcastle in Sam Allardyce’s first home game in charge. Thirteen days later there were boos following a 1-0 defeat against Southampton.

Despite the scoreline and although they needed help to get onto the scoresheet, the visitors were worthy winners. Yann M’Vila’s needless second-half challenge on Ryan Bertrand led to a penalty that Dusan Tadic gratefully tucked away.

“I felt comfortable when I saw Yann running out there,” said Allardyce of the incident that left him with his head in his hands in the dugout. “I didn’t think there was a threat when I saw Yann running out there.

“Then I thought: ‘Please don’t go to ground’ and then of course you look at the referee and it’s even more sickening when you see him pointing at the spot and rightly so as it was a penalty.

“We have to try and cut those things out. We have to make sure that we function correctly as a team.”

By and large, Sunderland had been functioning correctly as a team. They were set up not to concede, a task they had performed diligently until M’Vila’s moment of madness.

However they offered no threat going forward and once they fell behind they struggled to get back in the game.

“We need to relinquish that fear that they seem to be playing with,” said Allardyce, echoing the comments of several of his recent predecessors. “I see them on the training pitch. I see them passing and moving the ball and moving into space very, very well indeed.

“There are talented, experienced players here. They have to use that more than they are at the moment.”

“I think that perhaps that was the best we’ve pressed after we lost the ball,” said Southampton boss Ronald Koeman. “If we reach European football it’s like we won the title,” he said when asked of the club’s target.

For Sunderland the heady heights of 17th place is the aim, although at the moment even that seems a challenge.