Hoffmann wins the battle with a former Cat as Hume suffers scare
Sunderland swept past Crewe to move up to second in the League One table – and there were plenty of talking points after the game at the Mornflake Stadium.
An away following of 1,680 Sunderland supporters filled out the Ice Cream Van Stand, with more away fans situated behind one of the goals.
Those travelling Wearsiders who made the 360-mile round trip were sent home happy as Ross Stewart’s double, as well as a Terrell Thomas own goal and Leon Dajaku strike gave the Black Cats a comfortable win. Here are some of the other moments you may have missed.
After a bit of a shaky start, Sunderland upped their game midway through the first half as Thomas’ own goal and Stewart’s header gave them a commanding lead.
It could have been 3-0 five minutes before half-time when Aiden McGeady’s low cross from the left found O’Brien at the back post, with the latter arriving at speed.
O’Brien wasn’t able to divert his shot on target, and was also unable to stop himself as he ran off the pitch, past the advertising boards and into the most vocal section of the home fans.
Fortunately, the Sunderland attacker was able to run all the way up some steps rather than colliding with anyone.
There were some sarcastic cheers as O’Brien made his way back onto the field.
Thankfully no one was hurt.
With the game wrapped up and Sunderland four goals to the good, there was a brief injury scare when Crewe defender Kayne Ramsay wiped out Hume.
Hume came on in the 65th minute to make his first league appearance since recovering from a serious hamstring injury last season.
So there will have been
some concern when Ramsay chopped the defender down despite the ball being well out of shot. The incident occurred right in front of the Sunderland supporters who were calling for a red card to be shown.
Remarkably, though, referee Carl Boyeson awarded a throw-in and the challenge went unpunished.
There will have been relief on the Sunderland bench when Hume got back to his feet as the full-back continues to build up his match fitness.
After the German stopper made an outstanding save to secure three points at Gillingham on Saturday, he made another fine intervention here.
This time, Sunderland were 3-0 up and appeared comfortable, yet Crewe continued to pose problems as they searched for a way back into the game.
Just before the hour mark, J'Neil Bennett’s dinked pass to former Black Cats striker Mikael Mandron cut the visitors open, before Hoffmann made an instinctive intervention to claw away the forward’s effort.
After the Gillingham game, Johnson said his goalkeeper was disappointed with his kicking and there were moments here when his distribution was a little slack.
Yet if Hoffmann continues to keep the ball out of the net as he has been doing, he will earn Sunderland some valuable points this season.
After two league games without a clean sheet, this was the Black Cats’ fourth shutout of the campaign in League One.