Dropped to the bench by Moyes – (still fuming about Van Aanholt’s summertime smoking of shisha pipes) – he enjoyed one of his better afternoons after replacing the injured Jan Kirchhoff and, capitalising on a piece of wonderful skill from Duncan Watmore, scored the equaliser. The resultant draw dictates that Sunderland’s wait for a first Premier League win of the season continues but, although still bottom, they have at least doubled their points tally to two.
For long stretches of an afternoon on which Tony Pulis’s side missed several extremely presentable chances following Nacer Chadli’s assured opener, the injury hit Wearsiders looked doomed to yet another defeat but, creditably, they never folded.
“West Brom are the masters of not conceding goals but we kept going,” said an unusually upbeat Moyes. “It’s a disappointment because we need wins but we’ll take something from this. I’m glad we were able to give the supporters something.”
His side very nearly enjoyed the best of beginnings. An unusually fluent home passing move concluded with Watmore’s ball finding Jermain Defoe. Having cleverly sprung the visiting offside trap, and with only Ben Foster to beat, the former England striker took a steadying touch before, uncharacteristically, dragging his shot wide from about 12 yards out.
Fortified by John O’Shea’s reassuring recall to central defence, Sunderland enjoyed plenty of possession, something partly facilitated by Didier Ndong’s high-energy midfield enterprise. Yet ever the realist, Moyes will doubtless have noted that this apparent dominance rarely resulted in Ben Foster being tested while West Brom menaced sporadically on the counterattack and at set pieces.
When, at the end of one break, O’Shea and company were confounded by Matt Phillips’s pull back to Chadli, they had Jordan Pickford to thank for bailing them out, the England Under-21s goalkeeper doing well to repel the former Tottenham Hotspur player’s shot.
Unfortunately for the locals Chadli was enjoying himself in the weak October sunshine and soon defied Pickford. His goal began with Kirchhoff conceding possession to Claudio Jacob and moving the ball on to Phillips. After a brief advance, his well-weighted pass fell perfectly for the scorer, whose first touch took him away from Lamine Koné. All that remained was for an attacking midfielder whose polish, pace and physical presence were already enhancing the afternoon to slide a classy, acutely angled left foot shot into the far corner. It was his third goal in four Premier League games. “Chadli,” said Pulis. “Has been fantastic for us.”
If Moyes must have been disappointed with Koné, he can only have been relieved to see James McClean – heavily booed by his less-than-adoring former public – miscue a cross that had promised to offer the unmarked Salomón Rondón a simple tap-in on the verge of half-time.
Early in the new half Kirchhoff suffered the latest in a long line of injuries when he collapsed while jumping for a high ball and had to be carried off. Seeking to exacerbate Wearside misery, Darren Fletcher chested a ball down adroitly before unleashing a fine volley, ably diverted by Pickford. Home hearts were in mouths when Chadli pounced on the rebound but this time he shot wide.
At the other end, Pulis’s players generally defended admirably in the face of mounting pressure. Such sheer bloody-minded resolve was epitomised by the moment Jonny Evans brilliantly blocked Defoe’s goal-bound shot after Van Aanholt, on for Kirchhoff, and Wahbi Khazri bisected the visiting rearguard.
Fortunately for Moyes, Watmore possessed sufficient drive to unhinge that backline courtesy of a startling change of pace and deftly dinked ball which prefaced Van Aanholt sending a half-volley looping into the net. It was his second goal this season.
“We’re really disappointed; we had 21 crosses and 18 shots, we just needed a bit more quality in the final third,” said Pulis. “But the great thing for Sunderland was that the crowd stuck with them; they kept them going.”
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