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Post by Football News on Jan 31, 2015 17:33:04 GMT
Sunderland sink Burnley as Jermain Defoe hits first goal for club Sunderland 2 - 0 Sunderland Connor Wickham 20 Jermain Defoe 34 Jermain Defoe scores Sunderland's second goal against Burnley in the Premier League at the Stadium of Light. Jermain Defoe finally scored, Danny Ings was withdrawn in a huff and nobody booed as Sunderland won a Premier League game at home for only the second time this season. At the end of a week in which even Gus Poyet conceded that his latterly much jeered team had been “rubbish to watch” recently, a much improved performance eased relegation fears on Wearside. Only time will tell whether it actually proves the “turning point” Sunderland’s manager has been hoping for but Burnley - and Ings - will surely need to play much better than this if they are to survive. Poyet abandoned his recent experiment with five at the back replacing that formation with a 4-1-4-1 configuration capable of morphing into 4-3-3. Which ever way you looked at it though Jermain Defoe was essentially deployed as a lone striker while Connor Wickham and Adam Johnson were stationed wide on the right and the left respectively. Initially it looked alarmingly negative but Wickham and Johnson had a degree of freedom to roam with the former particularly drifting inwards. Even so Defoe was looking rather isolated when, in the 20th minute, Sunderland created their first real chance and Wickham scored. With Lee Mason, the referee, playing a good advantage, Sebastian Larsson was able to recover from being fouled and provide Anthony Réveillère with a fine pass. Overlapping from right back, Réveillère proceeded to supply Wickham with a splendid cross which the former England Under-21 striker headed past Tom Heaton. By half time Jermain Defoe had scored his first goal in a Sunderland shirt since arriving from Toronto earlier this month. It was an entirely typical finish from the one time England striker who extended his right boot and beat Heaton from close range after connecting with a left wing cross from the arguably offside Patrick van Aanholt. As Defoe celebrated Jordi Gómez could reflect on a job well done in picking out Van Aanholt with an audacious precision pass. The odd George Boyd cameo apart, Burnley had contributed little - although Ashley Barnes knew he really should have beaten Costel Pantilimon with an early header following David Jones’s free kick. Defoe began the second half by missing a relatively simple chance to make it 3-0 after Johnson’s clever reverse pass and another Van Aanholt cross. At the other end Barnes, too, might have done better with a header and then a shot after being twice set up by Boyd. If it came as a surprise to see Sean Dyche subsequently replace Boyd with Ross Wallace, the Burnley manager’s decision to send Lukas Jutkiewicz on in place of the much conveted yet almost entirely anonymous Ings proved somewhat less startling. Ings though seemed rather put out and deliberately looked away from Dyche as he trudged off shaking his head and muttering to himself. It will be very interesting to see if the forward is still at Turf Moor this time next week. Guardian
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