Ballard has last laugh after West Brom jeers
SUNDERLAND centre-back Dan Ballard was the pantomime villain at the Hawthorns on Saturday after he was booed and jeered by the Baggies fans during the Black Cats’ 1-0 win, as well as being on the receiving end of some overly forceful tackles from the opponents – which led to Albion forward Brandon Thomas-Asante’s dismissal in the first-half.
In the reverse fixture back in December which Sunderland won 2-1, the Northern Ireland international left the former Black Cats academy product in a heap after a crunching tackle, which saw Ballard yellow carded and Maja withdrawn from his first return to Wearside in almost four years due to injury.
It was the Nigerian’s first start for the Baggies and the resulting ankle injury he suffered has kept him sidelined until his cameo in Albion’s win over Rotherham last Wednesday.
There is no love lost between Maja and the Black Cats faithful due to his controversial exit, played out in the infamous Netflix series, for Bordeaux back in January 2019.
Likewise, the stalwart centreback was a figure of ridicule from the Albion support on Saturday, and was on the receiving end of two harsh fouls from Jed Wallace and Thomas-Asante. The latter was given his marching orders for his after picking up his first yellow moments earlier.
Ballard however had the last laugh, a clean sheet and three points to boot to silence the home crowd, with the emotion pouring out at full-time as he fist pumped and shouted towards the sold-out away end. He smiled as he told the club’s media after the game: “I was getting a little bit of stick today so it added to the win, it felt good.”
“It was another sell-out there, the fans were brilliant and helped us through it again, so thank you to them. It doesn’t seem like there is much to play for now, and it is another sell-out.
“It amazes me, it amazes the players and that is one of the real motivations to have a strong end to the season because no matter where we go, it’s sold-out, so we can’t thank them enough, the support is unbelievable.”
On the performance and clean sheet, which takes it to five in six shutouts for the Black Cats with the 24-year-old at the heart of the defence, he added: “It probably wasn’t our best performance as a team, but we’ve been a lot better defensively recently, obviously that’s five clean sheets in six games now so as a defender I am pleased with that.”
“But as a team, we probably didn’t play as well as we would’ve liked to - but I’d rather do that and come away with the three points, it was a tough game but good to get three points.”
Interim boss Mike Dodds has steadied the Sunderland backline with three clean sheets on the bounce, but even Ballard admitted that his side are ‘probably playing too defensive’, but is hoping to build on those solid foundations in defence for the remainder of the campaign.
Ballard added: “We’re limiting teams to very little, as a full team we are probably playing a little bit too defensive, we probably haven’t had the chances that we would like, but hopefully we can turn these into more victories.”
“We’ve had a few draws recently, so yeah just keep going, score a few more goals, keep the clean sheets and have a strong end to the season.”