Full time: Sunderland 1-2 Middlesbrough
Peep peep! That is a fine win for Middlesbrough, the result of two seriously good goals from Cristhian Stuani. Sunderland had much more of the ball, with Duncan Watmore superb, but apart from one electric 15-minute spell in the second half they struggled to create clear chances. Thanks for your company, bye.
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90 min Boro are frustrating Sunderland by keeping possession. There will be three added minutes, in the first of which David Nugent replaces Negredo.
87 min Love’s cross is kicked behind for a corner by Gibson. Januzaj swings it in and Friend bravely heads clear.
85 min After a long spell of Boro possession, Clayton slices a shot well wide from long-range.
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83 min And now a Boro substitution: Daniel Ayala replaces Nsue, so Barragan will go to right-back.
81 min Sunderland’s final substitution: Joel Asoro, a Swedish forward who was born in April 1999, replaces the superb Duncan Watmore.
77 min Middlesbrough have restored a bit of order in the last few minutes after a torrid spell. They still can’t really keep the ball though.
73 min A great angled pass from Pienaar puts Van Aanholt clear on the left of the box, and his low cross somehow beats everyone in front of goal. Then Guzan spills Januzaj’s shot before blocking the follow-up at the expense of a corner. This is electric stuff from Sunderland.
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GOAL! Sunderland 1-2 Middlesbrough (Van Aanholt 71)
This goal wasn’t just in the post; it was sent by recorded delivery. Watmore’s stinging low shot from 25 yards is not held by Guzan, who can only push it out in front of goal, and the left-back van Aanholt gets to the loose ball first to score fro close range.
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69 min Boro almost finish it on the counter-attack. Stuani’s pass puts Negredo clear, aided by an awful attempt to play offside by Rodwell, but his first touch is heavy and that allows Mannone to charge out and block.
68 min Boro can’t get out of their third, never mind their half. Watmore has been exceptional in the last 10 minutes.
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65 min Sunderland are battering Boro now. The excellent Watmore finds the overlapping van Aanholt, whose careful low cross picks out Defoe 10 yards from goal. His goalbound first-time shot is crucially if unwittingly blocked by Gibson.
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64 min Watmore’s cross goes all the way across the face of goal, and then Januzaj slices a shot out for a throw-in.
62 min Januzaj’s good through pass finds Lens, whose shot is deflected wide by the sliding friend. That was a superb piece of defending.
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61 min “I have never understood the meaningless expression `kick off from right to left’, favoured by those of your sort,” says a justly outraged David Davies. “That may well be the case from YOUR perspective, but what if you happened to be behind either of the goals?”
If you were, you’d have better things to do than read a live blog of the match from my perspective.
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60 min A double chance for Sunderland. Januzaj can’t control his shot from Lens’ cross, and moments later Guzan makes a brilliant save low to his left from Van Aanholt’s fierce drive.
59 min A Boro substitution, with Albert Adomah replacing Ramirez.
57 min “I saw Boro play at Huddersfield last year,” says Michael Morris. “Town had a frankly ridiculous 75% of possession but Boro still won 2-0 and restricted us to a few half-chances at most. Boro are good at this sort of thing.” Their defensive organisation looks extremely good to my inexpert eye.
55 min Lynden Gooch gets the crowd going with a strong tackle on Clayton and fine, scurrying run from the halfway line that takes him into the area before his shot is blocked.
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51 min Defoe receives Januzaj’s pass in the area, tries to spin round Barragan and falls over. It wasn’t a dive, but nor was it a penalty.
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50 min “Could be a long season in Sunderland,” says Daniel Friedman. They’ll be fine; Moyes is far too good a manager for them to struggle. They played pretty well in that half, and also have a grotesque injury list at the moment.
47 min Paddy McNair was replaced by Jeremain Lens at half-time.
46 min Peep peep! Sunderland begin the second half.
Half-time reading
Half-time chit-chat “About Allardyce picking Watmore for the England squad, at any other time in the last 15 years, I would have said ‘No chance, he plays for Sunderland,’” says Shaun Wilkinson. “In your opinion, will Allardyce be the first England manager in a long time to make England a genuine meritocracy, with no automatic selection for players from the big clubs? I think he might be. I think he should pick Watmore (and I am a Newcastle fan).”
Well, Allardyce’s greatest quality is probably the almost absolute courage of his convictions. I hope he’ll play Drinkwater and especially Carroll, if he thinks that’s the right thing, but the England job can do funny things to people - even more so in the current climate, where hot air is inescapable and voluble ignorance is encouraged.
Half time: Sunderland 0-2 Middlesbrough
Two glorious goals from Cristhian Stuani have put Middlesbrough in control of this Tees-Wear derby. See you in 10 minutes.
GOAL! Sunderland 0-2 Middlesbrough (Stuani 45)
Another brilliant goal from Cristhian Stuani! This time, it’s all about the team rather than the scorer. Forshaw plays a good one-two with Ramirez and slides a fine angled pass to put Negredo through on goal. He dummies Rodwell, who slides off to the wrong fire, and then instead of shooting decides to pass it across the six-yard box for Stuani to sidefoot his second. That was a quite wonderful team goal.
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45 min Lovely play for the left-back George ‘Put’ Friend, who nutmegs Love and then cuts the ball back to Negredo, whose shot is blocked.
41 min Sunderland will be aggrieved at the scoreline, legitimately so given all their possession, though they haven’t threatened to trouble the scorers as much as they would like. Watmore and Januzaj have been good, Gooch and Defoe fairly quiet.
40 min Apart from his early Goal of the Season contender that separates the sides in arguably their most important match of the season, Stuani has done nothing.
38 min The stretching Djilobodji heads a deep corner wide of the far post, under pressure from Friend. In fact Rodwell has gone into the defence, with Pienaar and McNair in midfield.
36 min John O’Shea is leaving the field through injury, with the debutant Steven Pienaar replacing him. McNair will go into defence presumably.
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33 min Clayton’s tackle on Watmore diverts the ball to Defoe, who moves into the box on the left. Watmore makes an excellent run, pointing where he wants the pass, but Defoe overhits it through to Guzan. Watmore might be an outside bet for Sam Allardyce’s first England squad; he is a smart, talented and extremely busy player.
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31 min For all Sunderland’s possession, Guzan has had little to do and Boro do look very well organised defensively.
30 min “If there was ever a goalkeeper made for a Sopranos eleven a side,” says Ian Copestake, “it would be Mannone.”
What about that young Grimsby keeper, Vesuvio Oogatz?
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29 min Defoe has a goal disallowed for offside, the correct decision. He was a couple of yards offside. Sunderland haven’t really been able to get him in the game.
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28 min “Would you mind avoiding announcing the result of the Old Farm derby?” writes JR in Illinois. “The channel that carries the game here for some reason has motorcycle racing on live and is only showing the game after it has already happened.”
1-1.
27 min Rodwell scrunches a long-range drive high over the bar.
26 min Januzaj beats Clayton, who bundles him over and is booked.
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24 min Januzaj teases Friend and then scoots past him, another beautiful piece of skill. He gets into the box, right by the touchline, but his cutback goes straight to a Boro defender. The good and bad of Januzaj, right there. The way he beats players through close control and deception rather than speed is lovely.
23 min “There’s also a more cultural pursuit called Get Naylor in which quotes from a certain 1971 Geordie gangster film starring Michael Caine are matched to the eponymous internet presence that is GN,” says Ian Copestake. “Such as: ‘You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me it’s a full time job. Now behave yourself.’”
Don’t forget There’s Something About Gary, in which Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon vie for his physical love.
22 min The lively Watmore wins a corner on the left for Sunderland. Nothing comes of it.
20 min Sunderland seem a bit stunned by that goal, and Boro are having much more of the game. Ramirez’s long-range shot deflects off Djilobodji and straight at Mannone.
17 min Januzaj again demonstrates the lovely close control that would make him a good choice for Phonebox 5-a-side football. Sunderland must should isolate him and the left-back Friend at every opportunity.
14 min “’Where’s Naylor?’” says Ian Copestake. “This is like PokemonGo, yeah? Where kids and hipsters get directions to sporting events at which Gary may or may not be?”
It gives me great pleasure to formally announce that I still don’t know what PokemonGo is. Yep, I’m now an old fart. I don’t even know how to pronounce Tinie Tempah.
GOAL! Sunderland 0-1 Middlesbrough (Stuani 13)
Boro take the lead with their first attack, and it’s a stonking goal from Stuani. He was 25 yards out, a fair way to the right of centre, when he suddenly launched a monstrous curling screamer across Mannone and into the far top corner. I believe the appropriate phrase in these circumstances is pick that effer out.
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10 min Januzaj’s cross finds Defoe, who tries to wriggle away from Gibson in the box, and Barragan lumps it behind for a corner.
9 min Gooch’s inswinging cross from the left just evades Januzaj, who made a good run inside the left-back Friend, and bounces wide of the far post. Januzaj is actually playing on the right, with Watmore behind Defoe. Sunderland’s attacking-midfield trio all look sharp.
5 min Anyone out there? WHERE’S NAYLOR.
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4 min This has been an excellent start from Sunderland and Januzaj in particular. He receives a free-kick just inside the box on the left and skips daintily past Clayton and Forshaw before hitting a shot that is blocked by Barragan.
3 min A lovely early run from Januzaj, who ghosts past Friend on the right before hitting a cross too close to Guzan. If he gets his head right he will be a revelation this season, because he is obscenely talented.
2 min There’s a break in play after a clash of heads between Djilobodji and Negredo, with Negredo coming off much worse.
1 min Middlesbrough, in their very very very very very dark blue kit, kick off from right to left. Sunderland are in red-and-white stripes.
The players emerge to cheers and boos. Ready? Let’s do football.
A bit of pre-match reading
Team news
Sunderland (4-2-3-1) Mannone; Love, O’Shea, Djiliobodji, van Aanholt; Rodwell, McNair; Watmore, Januzaj, Gooch; Defoe.
Substitutes: Pickford, Khazri, Lens, Pienaar, Asoro, T Robson, J Robson.
Middlesbrough (4-2-3-1) Guzan; Nsue, Barragan, Gibson, Friend; Clayton, Forshaw; Stuani, Ramirez, Downing; Negredo.
Substitutes: Dimi, Ayala, Baptiste, De Sart, Adomah, Fischer, Nugent.
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Preamble
You know what they say: 2780 days is a long time in football. That’s how long it is since Sunderland and Middlesbrough last met in the Premier League, when they drew 1-1 in January 2009. The managers were Ricky Sbragia and Gareth Southgate, the goalscorers were Kenwyne Jones and Afonso Alves and players had names rather than hashtags and at signs.
Boro were relegated that season and have only just returned under Aitor Karanka, and Sunderland are hoping to avoid the usual relegation battle under David Moyes. Both sides had decent starts to this season last weekend. Middlesbrough played well in drawing at home to Stoke, while Sunderland were a little unfortunate to lose 2-1 at Manchester City, a performance that looks even better after subsequent City results.
There’s no Premier League derby like a north-east derby. These games have an intensity of their own, and in the absence of Newcastle this becomes the biggest game of the season for both clubs. There should be plenty for lovers of physicality to enjoy this afternoon.
Kick off is at 1.30pm local time, 9.30am in Rio.
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