O’Neill up and running after ‘dream’ start

MARTIN O’NEILL confessed he’d ran through dozens of scenarios in his mind as to how his first game as Sunderland manager would pan out.

They all ended in victory for his new club too. None of them were fanciful enough to involve coming from behind to win with two goals in the final six minutes though.

“Even in my wildest dreams, I never thought it would turn out like this,” the Irishman confessed, after maintaining his record of not having lost his first game in charge of any of his six senior sides, a run spanning two decades.

His assessment was a fair one. For 84 largely uninspiring minutes, it looked like being a case of new manager, same old Sunderland. That was until David Vaughan, one of the changes to the starting XI made by Steve Bruce’s successor, swung his left boot at a weak headed clearance from substitute Grant Hanley to find the top corner with an unerring 25 yard effort — the Welshman’s first goal since a summer move from Blackpool.

A point was a bonus. To accrue all three with only a third home win since Rovers were defeated here on New Year’s Day was the stuff of dreams, but with Blackburn having long-since gone into survival mode, barely advancing from their own half after the interval, the visitors were in no position to repel wave after wave of Sunderland attacks.

They almost held on, but two minutes into stoppage time, after Mauro Formica had been harshly adjudged to have handled on the edge of the area, Seb Larsson curled in a 20-yard free-kick which found the bottom corner off a post. Goalkeeper Paul Robinson, so resolute in the previous hour and a half, should have done better. Having benefited from the goals of another Larsson, Henrik, during his time in charge at Celtic, O’Neill no doubt felt that fate played a hand in the identity of his match-winner on this occasion.

“We felt the ball hit Mauro underneath his arm, he wasn’t swinging his arm towards it,” Steve Kean, the Blackburn manager insisted, his side anchored to 19th in the table. He added: “It wasn’t intentional.” The visitors, who have now failed to beat Sunderland in seven consecutive meetings, had further reason to rue the officials when, at the end of the first half, Scott Dann’s close-range finish from a Morten Gamst-Pedersen free-kick was ruled out for pushing by Chris Samba on goalkeeper Keiren Westwood. Kean added: “I don’t know if the referee has made the decision based on Chris’ size, but from our point of view, he didn’t foul Keiren.”

Had that goal stood, it would have doubled a lead the visitors had held since the 17th minute. Pedersen’s free-kick found an un-marked Samba on the edge of the area. The hulking defender showed admirably quick feet to rumble into the box before unleashing an angled drive that Westwood could only parry to Simon Vukcevic, who opened the scoring with a close range header. Replays suggested the midfield player may have been a shirt’s width offside, but it was a decision no assistant referee could have been expected to make without recourse to video technology.

Kieran Richardson had two clear opportunities to equalise within the next few minutes, but the midfielder’s lack of confidence in front of goal proved to be symptomatic of the minimal of threat carried by the entire Sunderland team until the pivotal final six minutes.

First, Jason Lowe slipped to allow a low Stephane Sessegnon cross through to the unmarked midfielder, whose snap-shot was blocked brilliantly by Robinson. Moments later, Larsson was the supply line as Blackburn were again caught short at the back post.

Richardson’s shot deflected narrowly wide. Robinson also denied the midfielder with a stunning second-half save, while also blocking Larsson’s shot at the near post after James McClean, the former Derry City winger who made an immediate impact from the bench late on, had provided the cross following a surging run down the left.

“We needed a win and to get it in that kind of manner was amazing,” Larsson said. “The amount of possession we had in the second-half was huge, but we couldn’t find a way through until David popped up with a stunning goal. The manager has come in with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and told us he believes in us.

“We’ve had a tough time but this will do us the world of good and hopefully we can push on. I think we deserved to win but we’ve said that all season and you can’t keep saying it without coming up with the goods.”