Leicester City draw Sunderland to complete relegation-zone escape
SUNDERLAND, England -- For one side, the great escape is complete.
Leicester City have produced better performances in the last six weeks, but a point after a run of six wins in seven games was enough. In combination with Hull City’s defeat at Tottenham Hotspur, the result ensures the Fennec Foxes will play in the Premier League next season. Sunderland still have a little work to do.
May 16 holds a special place in the heart of Sunderland fans of a certain vintage. This year the day marked the 25th anniversary of Sunderland’s 2-0 win away to their bitterest rival Newcastle in the second leg of the promotion play-off semi-final. It’s also five years since the Sunderland-supporting Paul Collingwood led England to its only ever cricket World Cup victory. This, you suspect, will not be remembered quite as fondly, but this was still anther step toward avoiding relegation.
Sunderland sit three points clear of Hull, with an inferior goal-difference, and two points above Newcastle, with a goal-difference that is five superior. One point, at either Arsenal on Wednesday or Chelsea next Sunday, will be enough to secure their Premier League future. Or it will stay up if Hull fail to beat Manchester United next week or Newcastle lose at home to West Ham or, depending on goal difference (and that’s where the game in hand may count against them) if Newcastle and West Ham draw.
Whether Jermain Defoe’s transfer from Toronto – expected to cost Sunderland in the region of £14million ($22 million) when wages are added to the fee – is deemed a success will depend on whether Sunderland survive, but what is certainly true is that he exudes a confidence and class unmatched by anybody else in the Sunderland side.
Where his teammates were nervous and the game largely scrappy as a result, he always seemed to have time to consider his options. His reinvention as a hard-running wide forward has been a surprise, but the enthusiasm with which he’s taken to it suggests just how grateful he is to have another chance in the Premier League; at 32, he clearly feels he made the move to MLS too soon.
Sunderland, playing into an awkward gusting wind, had begun the match better against the Premier League’s in-form side. Seb Larsson had a free-kick well-saved low to his right by Kasper Schmeichel and the keeper made a fine reflex block to keep out a Danny Graham volley after he’d been set up by a chipped through ball from Lee Cattermole. The longer the half went on, though, the more nervous Sunderland became and the more the quality of their passing declined.
Leicester’s main threat is through crosses whipped in by their wing-backs, Marc Albrighton and Jeff Schlupp, and there were spells toward the end of the first half when Sunderland were pinned back, struggling to get the ball clear as cross after cross was pumped into the box. Sebastian Coates, so strangely underused both at Liverpool and Sunderland, where he is on loan, stood up to the challenge well, but his third different central defensive partner in three games, John O’Shea, produced another display that managed to be simultaneously commanding and panic-inducing. No international defender, surely, has ever looked so uncertain under a high ball.
The second half began with much the same scratchiness, but news that Tottenham had taken the lead against Hull prompted a surge of noise around the stadium. First there was a burst of Labour’s 1997 election anthem “Things Can Only Get Better,” a chorus that seemed to reflect the sense of gloom on left-leaning Wearside both at the state of its football team and at the result last week’s of general election, which returned a Conservative majority. Then there came a chant of “Danny, Danny Rose” as the full-back, who had a successful loan spell at Sunderland, added a second for Spurs.
As QPR then came from behind to lead against Newcastle, the mood became strangely giddy. Perhaps caught up in the atmosphere, Dick Advocaat withdrew Liam Bridcutt for Adam Johnson and switched to a 4-2-3-1. The actual football, meanwhile, remained poor. Johnson did draw one scrambling save from Schmeichel and O’Shea flicked a header just wide, but for much of the last quarter of the game, it was Leicester that posed the greater threat.
Neither side in the end could break through, the wind having the final say. It was an ugly game, but that should not diminish what Leicester have done. Securing 19 points from eight games to transform their season is a remarkable achievement - something acknowledged in the warm applause the Leicester players received from the home fans at the final whistle.
