Sunderland 0, Arsenal 1

May 12 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

THE huge roar which greeted the award of an injury-time corner demonstrated how much expectations have been raised at the Stadium of Light this season. What came before and after showed how much there is still to do.

The equaliser Sunderland’s partying supporters craved failed to materialise – Lukasz Fabianski was not even forced to make a save.

So a season in which great strides have been made ended in defeat to an Arsenal side licking their wounds after scaling the heights but winning nothing, seemingly on the point of breaking up and backed up by an unrecognisable bench thanks to injury problems.

Yet the mood around the ground as the Black Cats players lapped up the adulation on a tour of the field underlined that at last Wearside has a football team they can be proud of. It was hardly the best send-off the impressively loyal supporters could have hoped for, but it didn’t matter. Sunderland will play Premier League football again next season.

While their one-man forward line was not the most positive, the home players showed the right mindset, albeit with little reward.

There were 14 seconds gone when Carlos Edwards tried a volley from Kenwyne Jones’ knockdown. Fabianski got his hands to it but the save was one for the cameras and the only one he had in the opening 45 minutes despite plenty of pot-shots. Grant Leadbitter, Ross Wallace, and Danny Collins all tried their luck.

Arsenal’s incursions were less frequent but more cutting. Theo Walcott started the game on the left but was not there very long, spending most of the game in a free role behind Emmanuel Adebayor and Nicklas Bendtner. The only Englishman in the Gunners’ starting XI was a constant threat to Sunderland’s back four, and forced a good early save from Marton Fulop on the Hungarian goalkeeper’s Premier League debut for Sunderland. Just a minute after the 19-year-old collected Bendtner’s header he had received an even better ball from Gilberto and gave it the finish it deserved.

The pass from Arsenal’s Brazilian captain was perfectly measured and Walcott calmly slipped it to the side of Fulop.

The sea was fretting but no one else was, with Sunderland’s supporters Mexican-waving and conga-ing through 90 minutes. Those supporters interested in the result will have been concerned when Jones was forced off clutching a left wrist which took the brunt of a fierce Gilberto shot. The striker’s half-time withdrawal did, however, did give a run-out to Roy O’Donovan, whose energetic displays against Aston Villa and Chelsea played an important part in galvanising his team for the late-season push to safety.

He was quickly in the action, heading over Collins’ cross after good work by Andy Reid and Wallace to create the chance for the centre. Nyron Nosworthy’s ball from the right was equally inviting, albeit just behind him. Having got behind the back four, he made a poor contact.

The Irishman had even more time to think about scoring his first Sunderland goal with 16 minutes left when he was played in down the inside right channel but dragged his shot wide. He did best with his hardest chance, forcing Fabianski into a save when Dean Whitehead drove a cross at him three minutes from time.

O’Donovan must improve his finishing next season if his workrate is not to go to waste. He will be hoping his commitment at least gives him the chance to do so at the Stadium of Light.

Referee Keith Stroud got into the carnival atmosphere with a ludicrous decision to set up some comedy capers. Whitehead forced Fulop into a save by stabbing Walcott’s cross from the right goalwards. If, as Stroud suggested, it was a deliberate back-pass, Whitehead needs his head examining.

The upshot was an indirect free-kick six yards out, 10 Sunderland players on the goal-line – and an embarrassing slice wide by Gilberto. Walcott should have put the result beyond doubt in the 68th minute when played in by Bendtner but failed to because of some questionable decision-making of his own.

Why the youngster chose to cross (to no one in particular) when bearing down on Fulop’s goal was a mystery.

When he did get it right, laying the ball off after cutting inside, substitute Mark Randall was wrongly denied a goal by the linesman’s flag. Fulop also frustrated him, getting down well to prevent what would have been the perfect ending to a characteristic Arsenal move.