No home comfort for new Cats boss
LEE Johnson’s reign got off to the worst possible start with a home defeat against basement side Wigan Athletic.
Johnson’s appointment as head coach was confirmed a little over two hours before kick-off and while the timing was a surprise it meant he was in the dugout at the Stadium of Light.
Scotland youth international Kyle Joseph’s first-half winner put a severe dent in Sunderland’s promotion hopes as Wigan claimed their first win in more than two months.
Defeat means Sunderland have picked up just a single point from their back-toback home games this week against Burton and Wigan, both of whom are in the bottom three.
The Black Cats are without a win in seven games in all competitions and slip to ninth in the table, the gap between themselves and the automatic promotion places standing at eight points.
Despite having no time to work with the players, Johnson made bold calls with changes to both the shape of the team and the personnel.
He brought Aiden McGeady in from the cold, the former Republic of Ireland man back in the side for the first time in 13 month and included in place of academy graduate Elliot Embleton.
McGeady’s return was one of four changes to the side which started against Burton in midweek, two of which were forced upon him by injuries to Luke O’Nien and leading scorer Charlie Wyke.
Chris Maguire came into the side in place of O’Nien while Will Grigg took the place of Wyke up front.
The other change saw Lee Burge return in goal in place of Remi Matthews, following the latter’s mistake against Burton which led to the visitors’ goal.
There was also a change of system, with Johnson switching to a back four and a 4-3-2-1 system.
Sunderland made a promising start, dominating possession and forcing Wigan back deep into their own half - but their decision-making and final ball was consistently poor.
For all their good approach work in that opening spell, the best they managed was a glancing header from Max Power which was well wide of goal.
Instead it was Wigan who took the lead on 16 minutes.
Good work from Tom James saw him bring the ball to the edge of the box and he played in Joseph.
He seemed to lose the ball to Bailey Wright but the young striker then out-muscled the defender to win it back and fired across Burge into the bottom lefcorner.
Sunderland tried to launch a response and Grant Leadbitter picked out McGeady inside the box with an excellent through ball - only for McGeady to send his shot from a tight angle into the side netting.
Josh Scowen at last tested Jamie Jones with a shot from just outside the box but the Latics’ goalkeeper pushed it behind.
Maguire cut into the area from the right flank but blazed his shot over the bar.
In injury time at the end of the first half, Sunderland breathed a sigh of relief when referee Trevor Kettle was unmoved by Wigan’s penalty claims when Kal Naismith went down after appearing to be blocked off by Tom Flanagan inside the area.
The second half followed the same pattern, Wigan putting men behind the ball and Sunderland struggling to break them down.
Scowen brought a brilliant save out of Jones, the goalkeeper leaping to his right to tip the midfielder’s header over the bar.
Midway through the half, he again made an athletic tip-over, this time from McGeady’s 25-yard effort - but those two chances were as good as it got for Sunderland as they toiled in vain.