Storming show by Black Cat battlers
RAIN lashing down. Gale force winds.
This was like Portsmouth all over again.
With one crucial difference. Whereas Sunderland failed to cope with the conditions at Fratton Park last month and crashed to a heavy defeat, against Cambridge at the Abbey Stadium they showed a bit more nous and a lot more gumption.
Storm Arwen battered the country on Friday night and throughout Saturday and, while there were no puddles of standing water at Cambridge as there had been at Portsmouth, the conditions still had to be mastered before anything even loosely resembling football could be played.
Sunderland both dealt with, and exploited, the weather conditions better than Cambridge.
They won the toss, opted to play with the wind at their backs in the first half and made that advantage count.
Alex Pritchard’s wind-assisted corner caught out Cambridge goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov, who could only watch as the inswinging set-piece sailed over him, hit the far post, and then hit him before crossing the line to give Sunderland a 15th minute lead.
Sam Smith briefly levelled just before the half hour but 10 minutes before half-time Nathan Broadhead’s rocket-shot left Mitov no chance as it flew into the top left-hand corner.
In the second half, Cambridge decided the wind was their best asset and bombarded the penalty area with long-balls, long
throws, and 11 corners - but Sunderland’s back line of Bailey Wright, Tom Flanagan and Callum Doyle stood firm, protecting Thorben Hoffmann behind them.
It was not a game for the purist, the weather saw to that, but Sunderland deserved great credit for their organisation, determination, and grit.
What made it all the more impressive was the fact Lee Johnson is struggling with a seemingly ever-growing injury list.
Jordan Willis, Dennis Cirkin, Niall Huggins, Denver Hume, Lee Burge and Aiden McGeady were already ruled out.
Luke O’Nien was also absent with Johnson revealing after the match he needs shoulder surgery and will be missing for anywhere between three and nine months.
Matters grew even worse when Corry Evans picked up a thigh problem in the warm-up at Cambridge, meaning Lynden Gooch had to be drafted in as a replacement ten minutes before kick-off.
That also meant a late change of shape to a back three with Gooch and Leon Dajaku operating as wingbacks.
With only 14 fit senior players available at present, it is a system Johnson could be forced to use again until either the injury situation eases or the January transfer window offers an opportunity to bring in reinforcements.
On Saturday, though, the head coach was just happy to have banked the points.
After the frustration of squandering a lead and being held to a draw by ten-man Shrewsbury in midweek, this win casts the bigger picture in a better light. A run of three successive league defeats has been followed by a three-match unbeaten run, yielding seven points from a possible nine.
Yes, Sunderland will feel they should have taken maximum points from those three games, but that is the way it goes.
Overall, it has been a good week for the Black Cats and they are now back up to fifth place in the table, three points behind leaders Rotherham and still with a game in hand on them - albeit, the Millers have a much better goal difference.
With a midweek EFL Trophy game against Oldham to come, Johnson will no doubt give as many players as possible a break ahead of another tough league game against play-off hopefuls Oxford United on Wearside next weekend.