Black Cats can Tyke heart after great week of positive results
Bristol Rovers 0 Sunderland 2
AFTER beating Gillingham 4-2 in midweek, Sunderland needed to follow it up at the hotchpotch of a football ground whch is Bristol Rovers’ Memorial Stadium.
They did. With good news elsewhere, it turned into a decent weekend for the Black Cats as they look to bounce back to the Championship at the first attempt.
Having taken a while to assert their dominance, Jack Ross’ men were able to accelerate away from their relegation-threatened opponents and ought to have won by more than the two-goal margin.
Apart from the victory and the clean sheet, the sub-plots provided plenty of talking points for the 1,408 travelling supporters to chew over on their long journey home.
A week is a long time in League One
Two 0-0 draws for Barnsley and Sunderland’s first back-to-back league wins of 2019 have given the promotion picture a different look Suddenly the Tykes are within reach, just two points ahead of the Black Cats, who have a game in hand.
Sunderland are also heading Barnsley in two and a half weeks.
It is a pity for the Black Cats they do not play in midweek and they need to keep the pressure on when they host Plymouth Argyle on Saturday. Barnsley to are at Southend United.
Luke O’nien a goal threat even from right-back
He might be Sunderland’s rightback but Luke O’nien has an eye for goal which is serving his team well this season.
When Grant Leadbitter played a corner short to Aiden Mcgeady and the winger found Will Grigg at the far post, it was O’nien who burst on to the square pass to tap the ball in.
It was his fifth goal for the Black Cats, three of them from full-back.
Whether he would be better served in the centre of midfield is a moot point but the 24-year-old brings a goal threat Adam Matthews – on the bench at the Memorial Ground – does not, as well as being able to provide them.
Front two add a different dimension
With Grigg and Duncan Watmore at centre-forward in a slightly lop-sided 4-4-2 formation, Sunderland’s thinking was clear.
When Leadbitter, in particular, had the ball at his feet, he was looking for the runs the front two were making in behind the Bristol Rovers back four. Charlie Wyke is more about holding the ball up and flicking it on and Josh Maja prefers to come towards it, so the pair bring a different dimension to the Wearsiders’ play.
It was a Watmore run which won the free-kick Aiden Mcgeady brilliantly curled in for Sunderland’s second.
Playing central midfielder George Honeyman as a right-sided midfielder when specialist winger Lewis Morgan was on the bench was perhaps harder to argue.
That is no reflection on the industri-