Advertising hoardings dotted around Sunderland are adorned with enticing images of long sandy beaches and invite visitors to embark on adventures in “our city by the sea”. It is all part of an £80m project intended to reinvent and regenerate the post-industrial riverside area around the Stadium of Light but West Ham had evidently not bargained for this rejuvenation extending to the football team.
As the second half unfolded, an exhilarating afternoon that exceeded the wildest dreams of even the most optimistic Sunderland fans became not so much an adventure as an ordeal by the North Sea for West Ham’s manager.
“Disappointed with that,” said Graham Potter. “We have to learn the lesson that it’s difficult to win matches. It’s one game but we have to bounce back. We have to be better. We have to make it happen.”
In marked contrast, Régis Le Bris looked as if he was struggling to stop smiling. “I’m happy for the fans,” he said. “We just have to enjoy this. West Ham are a strong team who maybe didn’t play their best football today.”
Right from the start a counterattacking Sunderland, featuring seven summer signings, looked quick, agile and nimble-footed.
While an array of new faces including the excellent Habib Diarra and Granit Xhaka shone, it was three of the old boys, Eliezer Mayenda, Dan Ballard and Wilson Isidor, who scored the goals.
Although West Ham, with Jarrod Bowen looking dangerous, held their own in the opening half they were restricted to two chances. Then, in the course of a chastening second period featuring some assiduous man-to-man marking, the visitors folded.
They had perhaps failed to heed the warning delivered when Diarra, the club-record £30m midfield recruit from Strasbourg, showed off an impressive change of first-half pace as he executed a slick one-two with Mayenda. The heart of defence was pierced and only a decent save from Mads Hermansen kept the score goalless.
For all Diarra’s fleet-footed probing, Noah Sadiki’s snappy tackling and the way the deep-sitting Xhaka showed why Bayer Leverkusen were so reluctant to part with him, West Ham were still not exactly out of things. It took a sliding, last-ditch clearance on Ballard’s part to prevent El Hadji Malick Diouf shooting the visitors ahead.
One of football’s little mysteries revolves around the failure of one of the so-called “elite” clubs to poach Bowen. Goodness knows where West Ham would be without him.
Robin Roefs, Sunderland’s new Netherlands Under-21 goalkeeper, who was preferred to the playoff hero Anthony Patterson, showed off some nifty footwork and had not been overexerted.
Nordi Mukiele must have felt reassured he was making the right choice in swapping Paris Saint-Germain for Sunderland. That move is poised to be confirmed on Saturday with the full-back becoming summer signing No 12.
Simon Adingra, the former Brighton winger, and Diarra nearly give Sunderland the lead before Mayenda almost lifted the stadium’s roof off.
• West Ham (902) became the fourth team to concede 900 away goals in the Premier League, after Everton (925), Spurs (922) and Newcastle (912), with the Hammers doing so in the fewest number of matches (556).
• Sunderland ended a run of eight league matches against West Ham without a win (D4 L4), gaining their first victory against the Hammers since January 2013 (also 3-0). Opta
When Omar Alderete, the Paraguay centre-half making his home debut as a substitute, hooked a cross into the area, Mayenda, a scorer at Wembley in May, backed into his marker before contorting his body into a position from where he headed Sunderland into the lead.
If Potter looked unhappy with that piece of defending he appeared furious as the unattended Ballard guided a tremendous header beyond Hermansen after meeting Adingra’s deep cross.
Hermansen will not want to watch replays of the third goal, curled in superbly by the substitute Isidor who, having connected with Xhaka’s delivery, ran at the defence before unleashing an effort that seemed to go through the former Leicester goalkeeper en route to the far corner.
Given that this particular Sunderland side had never played together before it is small wonder Wearsiders are convinced Le Bris really is a special one.
