Sunderland 1 Aston Villa 1

Sunderland entertained Aston Villa at the Stadium Of Light but a Villain in the shape of Steve Bennett turned up the steal Sunderland`s Christmas.

Referee Steve Bennett disallowed a perfectly good goal from Danny Collins for Sunderland in stoppage time.

Sunderland had managed to take a surprise lead when Danny Higginbotham headed in a Ross Wallace corner in the early minutes of the first half.

Villa then went on to control most of the first half as Sunderland struggled to keep possession.

Sunderland did however have a goal disallowed for offside and Jones had a good chance before the break. But apart from that Villa had Sunderland under the cosh and it seemed only a matter of time till they scored.

However Sunderland`s the defence stood firm until the second half when Villa got the goal they deserved with great free kick from substitute Shaun Maloney.

Sunderland then managed to get a bit more possession of the ball and had the chances to win the game with two good chances.

The first chance was created by Cole who picked out Leadbitter but his header was well saved from Carson.

The Second was the disallowed goal from Collins.





Sunderland Line Up 4-4-2

Ward
Whitehead
Higginbotham
McShane
Collins
Wallace
Etuhu
Yorke
Murphy
Stokes
Jones


Subs not used

Gordon
O`Donovan

Dwight Yorke - His passing was excellent can`t remember one stray pass. Hope his team mates were watching and learning.

The officials were rubbish they disallowed two goals and made some really poor decisions. Apart from that we deserved to win the game. We defended well and if we had taken our other chances we would have won easily.

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