Odion Ighalo lifts Watford to seventh and leaves Sunderland in bottom three
Sunderland 0 - 1 WatfordAway team scorers
Odion Jude Ighalo 4
Odion Ighalo, second right, scores for Watford against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
A couple of hours before kick-off the north-east received its first snowfall of winter. Only minutes into the first half Sam Allardyce must have wished it had been sufficiently severe to prompt the postponement of a game that would leave his side stuck in the bottom three and a thoroughly impressive Watford savouring the view from the heights of seventh.
Sunderland’s manager had cautioned John O’Shea and the rest of his apparently frozen back five about the danger posed by Watford’s Odion Ighalo but such warnings were clearly in vain. Individual defenders had been sent video clips of how to try to stop the Nigerian striker but they either failed to open the attachments sent to their laptops and tablets or simply found the task of putting theory into practice well beyond them.
Accordingly, it did not take long for Ighalo to put Watford ahead. When Allan Nyom – industry personified down the visitors’ right flank – crossed low, he ghosted in front of a startled Sebastián Coates before directing the ball low beyond Costel Pantilimon from close range. Or at least that is how it appeared to the naked eye; television replays suggest Coates may have applied the final touch.
Quique Sánchez Flores had appeared slightly miffed when Allardyce claimed this was a “relegation six pointer” and his players soon showed precisely why they are entitled to harbour greater ambition.
Watford should really have doubled their advantage after Ighalo seamlessly turned O’Shea before seeing his shot blocked. It provoked an almighty goalmouth scramble which concluded with José Manuel Jurado shooting against a post.
Allardyce barely had time to sigh with relief before scrapping a five-man defence clearly malfunctioning in the absence of Younès Kaboul. With DeAndre Yedlin – responsible for a few concessions of possession – taken off, Jack Rodwell was introduced into a central midfield department hitherto struggling without the injured Lee Cattermole.
Although Pantilimon did well to repel a low, curling strike from Étienne Capoue, Sunderland’s new look 4-1-4-1 configuration – featuring Ola Toivonen sitting deep and protecting the back four – ensured they saw a bit more of the ball, even appearing mildly threatening at times.
Not that this prevented Watford from continuing to menace on the counterattack or the home side being booed off by the near 44,000-strong crowd at half-time. When they re-emerged from the tunnel Sunderland had the task of trying to win a Premier League game in which they had fallen 1-0 behind for the first time in four years.
Now Yann M’Vila had taken over as Sunderland’s midfield anchor with Toivonen pushed further forward and shortly afterwards the ineffective Fabio Borini was replaced by Adam Johnson.
Watford were finally having to do some proper defending but, unfortunately for Allardyce, they seemed rather good at it and generally restricted their hosts to shooting from long range.
Granted Heurelho Gomes did well to divert Rodwell’s vicious drive but the enduring resilience of Flores’s players forced Sunderland’s manager to play his final card: Jermain Defoe’s arrival in place of Steven Fletcher.
This switch precipitated all sorts of questions as to why Defoe had not been introduced earlier. Almost immediately he had the ball in the back of the net only for that strike to be, correctly, ruled out for offside.
No matter, a suitably inspired Duncan Watmore sent a shot swerving fractionally wide before Gomes saved brilliantly to deny Defoe and then both the former England striker and Johnson directed half-volleys wide.
In between first Pantilimon and then Coates prevented Ighalo from extending Watford’s lead but, for Sunderland, it was too little, too late.