Cats just cannot keep QPR at bay

AN UNBEATEN start in the league, five points from three games, impressive performances against established second-tier opposition, a strikeforce that has hit the ground running.

Alex Neil has plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the way Sunderland have taken to life back in the Championship.

However, there was not even a hint of a smile when the Scot faced the media in the aftermath of his side’s 2-2 draw against QPR.

Neil was inwardly seething. A study in controlled fury.

After watching the way his side threw away a two-goal lead – and with it two points – in the most dramatic, crazy, incredible, final five minutes at the Stadium of Light, his frustration was entirely understandable.

Invited to put aside the final moments and asked if he was pleased with the way his side had played over the preceding 85 minutes, he grimaced and said: “I might be tomorrow. I am not pleased now.” Asked if he was satisfied with a return of five points from three games, he replied: “No. Right now I am not satisfied, not happy.”

His mood was hardly helped by the sight of one of his key summer signings, centreback Daniel Ballard, limping off inside the first ten minutes with a foot injury caused by a late challenge – with Neil saying the defender had gone to hospital.

The glass of water on the desk in front of him was very definitely half-empty.

Uppermost in his mind was the manner in which Sunderland had somehow allowed QPR to “get out of jail”, as he described it.

For 45 minutes, Sunderland were on course for victory with Ross Stewart (left) scoring for the second game in succession when he put them ahead on the halfhour before Ellis Simms followed his debut brace last week with a goal on his home debut five minutes before the break.

QPR were reeling and although they improved slightly in the second half they still posed a limited threat.

Sunderland could have killed the game with a third goal, but it just would not come.

Instead, QPR were handed a lifeline when they won a free-kick just outside the D with three minutes of the 90 remaining and Ilias Chair picked out the top right-hand corner with the set-piece. The real twist was still to come.

It arrived in the second minute of added time when at a QPR corner, in an act of desperation, goalkeeper Seny Dieng lumbered forward and after Chair’s initial set-piece was cleared back to him he delivered it into

the box and Dieng’s header beat Anthony Patterson.

Sunderland fans were immediately transported back almost two decades to September 2003 and the day their then-goalkeeper Mart Poom scored a bullet-header from a corner in the 93rd minute against his old club Derby County at Pride Park to become an instant folk-hero and earn the Black Cats a 1-1 draw.

Poom’s goal remains one of those ‘I was there when...’ moments and Dieng’s goal will no doubt be afforded the same status among QPR fans.

Neil’s post-match explanation was simple and logical and it came down to numbers –

however you look at it, assuming your goalkeeper guards his goal, when the opposing goalkeeper comes forward there has to be a spare man somewhere.

Identifying the problem is one thing, solving it is another. Even then Sunderland could have won it but Stewart was denied by Dieng and Elliot Embleton’s follow-up shot was deflected on to the underside of the bar and it bounced clear.

Once the immediate sting dissipates Neil will be able to look back and reflect on the positives such as that unbeaten start, the points haul, the first 85 minutes.

Not yet, though. The disappointment is still too raw.