Sunderland has been defeated by West Bromwich Albion in a Premier League match played at The Hawthorns on Saturday. West Brom won the match by a close margin of 2-1.
This win took West Brom pretty close to Everton in the points table. The Baggies are now only a couple of points behind Everton. West Brom has 40 points in 27 matches, while, Everton has 42 points in the same number of matches.
In the first 20 minutes, the game was pretty slow and there were not many opportunities created. But, after the 20th minute mark, slowly, the Black Cats started getting into their groove and started creating opportunities.
The first goal scoring chance came Sunderland’s way when Danny Graham gave Steven Fletcher a decent cross and Fletcher beat the West Brom goalie with a flat shot, but, he was unlucky that he couldn’t find the back of the net. The ball bounced back after hitting the post. However, Fletcher still had opportunity as the ball came towards him on the rebound. But, the Scot missed the target again. This time, his shot went over the goal post and Sunderland couldn’t take the lead.
West Brom earned a penalty in the 35th minute of the match and it was Romelu Lukaku who took the shot. The 19 years old Belgian didn’t miss the target. With a powerful shot, he beat the Sunderland goalkeeper and the score became 1-0 in the favour of West Brom.
West Brom took a 2-0 lead in the 75th minute when Lukaku found the back of the net for the second time in the match. Titus Bramble gave Simon Mignolet a back pass and the goalkeeper tried to clear it, but, instead of clearing, he ended up pushing the ball to Lukaku who was not going to miss out on that chance. With a deflection, he found the back of the net and put the Black Cats under tremendous pressure.
Just four minutes later, the lead got reduced to 1-2 when Stephane Sessegnon scored the first goal for Sunderland. The match got pretty exciting after that goal. But, thereafter, the West Brom team started playing defensively and made sure that Sunderland wouldn’t score any more goals.
This was Sunderland’s 12th defeat in the ongoing Premier League. The Black Cats currently have 29 points in 25 matches and they are at the 15th position in the points table.
Sunderland will take on Fulham in its next match on 2nd of March at the Stadium of Light.