As the final whistle blew a joyous smile spread across Josh Maja’s face and looked as if it would take some removing. Five minutes after stepping off the bench to make his league debut for Chris Coleman’s side, the 18-year-old striker expertly turned his marker, shot low and scored the goal that would secure Sunderland’s first home win for 364 days.
The 12 months since Watford were beaten here on 17 December last year have been particularly grim – and sometimes downright gruesome – for the Wearsiders but, remarkably, a crowd of 25,904 turned up to see Maja lift Sunderland out of the relegation zone and offer hope of a brighter future.
“I’m very happy for our supporters, they’ve suffered for the last year and we were desperate to give them something to smile about,” said Coleman, whose evident relief was tempered by the need to remind everyone that one home win should not represent a cause for an open-top bus parade. “The signs are promising and we’re going to enjoy the moment but it’s only three points, a small gain.”
He has pledged to “endeavour to make the Stadium of Light a fortress again” but if the inspired introduction of Maja’s quick feet and even sharper movement represented a significant step along that road, the former Wales manager had begun by rebuilding his defence.
Accordingly Coleman – whose five games since succeeding Simon Grayson have produced three clean sheets – armed Sunderland with a five-man defence. That quintet lived dangerously when Ryan Sessegnon swiftly advanced from left-back and sent a menacing ball whizzing across the area. Robbin Ruiter, the home goalkeeper, must have momentarily feared the worst but the delivery was too slick for Stefan Johansen whose out-stretched boot could not quite connect.
Reprieved, Coleman’s players regrouped, started seeing quite a bit of the ball and looked a potentially decent team. With Darron Gibson impressing in the home midfield – at times it was tempting to wonder if the Gibson horribly prone to having shockers on this ground had a twin brother who was standing in – Fulham were definitely not having things all their own way.
Yet while Marcus Bettinelli saved competently from Gibson and George Honeyman, Slavisa Jokanovic’s side were being exposed only to half chances. In contrast Ruiter was stretched to the limit as he did well to deny Johansen. The former Utrecht goalkeeper then reacted smartly to quash the danger after a tackle from the excellent, much-improved Tyias Browning had prevented Tom Cairney from scoring in two frantic minutes late in the first half.
As the interval approached, Fulham had upped their game with one particular counterattack leaving Ruiter once again looking relieved as an unmarked Oliver Norwood headed Rui Fonte’s cross fractionally wide.
Lewis Grabban’s header from Adam Matthews’ left-wing cross might well have beaten Bettinelli but it was skewed off target after deflecting off a defender.
With Cairney beginning to show off his class sporadically, Jokanovic’s players dominated possession for a while but even if it was, at times, possible to see why Fulham value the Scotland midfielder at £20m, the visitors were never completely in control.
Neither were Sunderland but they did begin the second half by upping the tempo, creating a flurry of chances and being extremely unfortunate not to take the lead.
Hats off to Bettinelli for a fabulous save to deny James Vaughan. The striker’s powerful header from around eight yards out appeared to be destined for the bottom corner until the goalkeeper dived low and tipped the ball back upwards on to the bar and away to safety.
The time had nearly come for a bold double substitution involving Coleman withdrawing Grabban and Vaughan while introducing Maja, ironically once part of Fulham’s youth system, and his fellow bright young striker Joel Asoro.
When Maja rewarded such faith by meeting Matthews’ low ball, swivelling away from a defender and beating Bettinelli from around eight yards, Sunderland’s manager seemed temporarily frozen in a sort of shell-shocked disbelief before briefly blowing his cheeks out with sheer relief. “I’ve been very impressed with Josh,” Coleman said. “He’s different, he gives us a big injection of personality.”
