Sunderland were held to a goalless draw by ten-man Swansea City, despite the Black Cats enjoying near-total dominance
Sunderland’s Dan Neil sees a shot blocked on the line by Swansea City’s Harry Darling
Dan Neil admits Sunderland’s inability to put ten-man Swansea City to the sword was the continuation of a theme. The Black Cats played for an hour – plus injury time – with a man advantage against the Swans after on-loan Arsenal midfielder Charlie Patino was sent off for a second bookable offence.
But, despite enjoying near-total dominance and creating enough chances to win three games, Sunderland could not make their numerical advantage could and they were instead held to a goalless stalemate at the Liberty Stadium. “It was very frustrating,” said Neil, who saw a shot cleared off the line by Harry Darling when it was still 11-vs-11.
“I feel like there have been a lot of times when I’ve played for Sunderland and teams have gone down to ten men and we just struggle to break them down. I felt the first 30 minutes [before the sending-off] were really good, in and out of possession I thought we dominated.
“Our press was fantastic, they couldn’t really get out of their half. We were forcing errors and cutting through them as well.
“I had a really good chance around the penalty spot and just didn’t get a clean connection on it. Last year we got beaten 2-1 there and it was an alright performance in the second half.
“We came away taking the positives, yet we’re not taking many positives from this because we wanted the three points. It just shows how far this team has come because when we come to places like this we expect to take three points.”
Swansea fans were unhappy with the decision to send off Patino for two fouls, each drawing a booking, on Pierre Ekwah, and they also took issue with a series of calls from referee Bobby Madley. And with that sense of injustice, and with Swansea’s determination to cling on to their clean sheet with ten men, it made Sunderland’s task all the more difficult.
Neil said: “Yeah, when the stadium gets going it’s quite a loud atmosphere. I don’t know how to explain it but when you go down to ten men you almost grow together again as a unit because at the time it was 0-0 and had something to hold on to.
“It would be different if they were 1-0 down and went down to ten men as shoulders could go down. They had something to hold onto and almost grew as a unit and put bodies on the line and blocked good chances.
