Lewis grabs Villa glory
SUNDERLAND 0 ASTON VILLA 3
LEWIS Grabban enjoyed a sweet goalscoring return to Wearside.
The 30-year-old remains Sunderland’s top scorer for the season, but it is Aston Villa who are benefiting from his finishing prowess these days. The Bournemouth player went to Sunderland on loan for the first half of the season and then moved on to Villa.
His third in as many games helped Steve Bruce’s side maintain the pressure on neighbours Wolves.
In-form Villa trimmed the gap to the Championship leaders to seven points ahead of their weekend visit to Villa Park, as a ninth win in 11 games maintained the quest for automatic promotion.
With strikes from Grabban, James Chester and an own-goal from Bryan Oviedo, they had too much quality for a Sunderland side who look doomed to back-to-back relegations after posting an eighth successive game without victory to leave Chris Coleman’s strugglers bottom of the table.
It proved a sweet return to the North-east for Geordie Bruce, the former Sunderland manager who boasts an record of just one defeat in 16 games against his former employers, who deemed him surplus to requirements seven years ago despite back-to-back midtable finishes in the Premier League.
Coleman is the latest in a long-line of successors to Bruce who look incapable of turning round a sinking ship, on what was another utterly dispiriting night for Sunderland fans, who saw their side create precious little in terms of chances in a contest played out in front of a rapidly-emptying stadium.
Villa surged into a two-goal lead despite the first meeting of these old foes outside the top flight for 43 years initially proving to be a slow-burner, with clear-cut chances few and far between. Scott Hogan wasted the only decent opportunity of the opening quarter of an hour.
Hogan almost atoned when his glancing header from a Robert Snodgrass centre beat goalkeeper Jason Steele, only to land on the roof of the net.
Sunderland were forced into an early re-shuffle when their on-loan defender Tyias Browning limped off with a groin problem, to be replaced by Billy Jones.
They ought to have taken the lead when Ashley Fletcher out-paced Chester to Donald Love’s through-ball, only for the on-loan Boro forward to be let down by poor control.
Villa made the most of their let-off as, almost inevitably, Grabban broke the deadlock 11 minutes before the interval. The goal arrived from an unchallenged far-post header after Jones and John O’Shea both allowed Albert Adomah’s centre to run across the face of goal to leave their former teammate with a simple finish.
Chester doubled the advantage in first-half stoppage-time, the defender exploiting some non-existent marking to head home an in-swinging Snodgrass corner.
Villa stretched their lead with a third goal after 66 minutes. It arrived from Conor Hourihane’s shot, which took a deflection off defender Ovideo, but still should have been saved by Steele,