Hull 0-2 SunderlandAway team scorersBilly Jones 69
Jermain Defoe 90 +1:42
A couple of weeks ago a reporter asked David Moyes if he felt he had been “shown up” by Marco Silva’s impressive stewardship of Hull City.
Sunderland’s manager gave a bland answer, yet the flintiness in his eyes suggested he was both privately seething and particularly keen to end his East Yorkshire counterpart’s proud record of having not lost a home League game in Portugual, Greece and England since March 2014.
Thanks to an amalgam of Jordan Pickford’s heroics in goal and Hull’s failure to cope with the pressure of suddenly being expected to be the team in control, Moyes not only shattered Silva’s record but significantly increased the prospect of his side joining already relegated Sunderland in the Championship next season. With awkward fixtures at Crystal Palace and at home to Tottenham Hotspur ahead, hope is suddenly an unexpectedly dwindling resource by the Humber.
Young George Honeyman should really have given Sunderland an early lead but, instead, the midfielder headed wide after connecting with Billy Jones’s inviting cross at a moment when Jermain Defoe’s decoy run had distracted Hull’s defence.
Cheered on by their convalescent midfielder Ryan Mason – back at the KCom for the first time since fracturing his skull at Tottenham Hotspur in January – Silva’s side had made a slightly shaky start.
Accustomed to sitting back at home before hurting visitors on the counter-attack, they were suddenly supposed to be dominant but did not seem to have entirely got the hang of it. Almost imperceptibly, such uncertainty spread to an initially noisy home crowd, prompting chants of “Is this a library?” from Sunderland’s large, vocal –and surprisingly cheerful – travelling support.
Not for the first time this season, Sam Clucas did more than any other Hull player bar the menacing Kamil Grosicki to re-calibrate the mood. Invariably integral to his team’s better manoeuvres, the central midfielder proved the conduit through which much of their play flowed. Fittingly, his low volley stretched Pickford to the absolute limit in the wake of Grosicki’s sashay past Jones and clever cross.
With the advancing Harry Maguire subsequently shooting inches wide and then Pablo Hernández changing pace before surging beyond Javier Manquillo and bending a left-foot shot fractionally past the far post, Silva’s side gradually grew into the game but never looked exactly secure at the back.
Clucas needed to watch his step after rightly collecting a booking for a challenge on Didier Ndong but retained sufficient cool to rescue his defence by whisking the ball off Defoe’s toecaps at a moment when the England striker threatened to end his recent goal drought.
Early in the second half Eldin Jakupovic did well to repel Defoe’s shot at the end of a rapid Sunderland break while Pickford’s intervention just prevented Alfred N’Diaye heading the increasingly lively Grosicki’s cross beyond him.
Not for nothing is Pickford coveted by a host of leading clubs and he emphasised his ability courtesy of a wonderful fingertip save which somehow steered Lazar Markovic’s header to safety after the Liverpool loanee had met Ahmed Elmohamady’s stellar cross.
As John O’Shea’s sliding interception forced Hernández into shooting wide rather than almost certainly scoring, Hull’s fans grew despondent. With those two tricky fixtures ahead, they could sense the prospect of a bright Premier League future slipping, tantalisingly, away.
Even Silva’s confidence seemed punctured as the Portugese stood arms folded, staring disconsolately at the ground after Jones stunned both sets of supporters by giving Sunderland the lead.
It came from a set piece and featured O’Shea showing he remains useful at both ends by flicking on Honeyman’s corner. All that remained was for Jones to score with a diving, six-yard header which powered in off a post.
If Grosicki’s relocation from left to right in the wake of an injury to Markovic suited Sunderland, Moyes still required Pickford to preserve his side’s lead. A particularly outstanding one-handed save to deny Hernández probably pushed the goalkeeper’s value up at least a couple of million.
By now frantic, Silva sacrificed a midfielder, N’Diaye, to accommodate another striker in the shape of Dieumerci Mbokani but for once his boldness rebounded as Defoe scored a late, arguably offside, close-range second for Sunderland.
The sense destiny was against Hull grew as Andrea Ranocchia saw a certain goal whipped off the line by Seb Larsson. All good things must come to an end but this was an especially cruel conclusion to Silva’s long undefeated home run.
Guardian
