Sunderland striker Steven Fletcher scored in each half to help his beleaguered side earn a much-needed 3-1 win at Crystal Palace in their English Premier League match at Selhurst Park in London on Monday.
Sunderland’s second league win of the season, after conceding 10 goals with no reply in their previous two matches, lifted them out of the relegation zone to 15th place with 11 points from 10 matches and left Palace 17th with nine.
The visitors went ahead after half an hour when Fletcher rose to direct a header into Julian Speroni’s bottom-right corner from Patrick van Aanholt’s cross after the leftback was fed out wide by midfielder Jordi Gomez.
Photo: Reuters
Palace equalized thanks to an own-goal by substitute Wes Brown in the 55th minute, but Gomez put Sunderland back in front against the run of play by rifling a low shot from the left into the bottom corner in the 78th minute as Palace chased victory.
Fletcher scored the third on a breakaway in stoppage-time to wrap up the points and ease the pressure on manager Gus Poyet.
“I am pleased because it was a day that was all about winning, fighting, playing ugly when you have to and pass when you have to,” Poyet told the BBC. “We scored three goals, but Julian Speroni made a couple of good saves as well.”
Photo: Reuters
Palace manager Neil Warnock added: “It is a cruel game football.”
“We have ended up losing 3-1, which on paper looks a poor defeat, but I can’t fault the lads tonight, but decisions change games,” he said.
Palace had two penalty appeals turned down in the first half, one in the opening minute when Frazier Campbell ran onto a headed pass by Marouane Chamakh and went down when challenged by Santiago Vergini, though the Argentine did not appear to make contact.
The second appeal came in Palace’s first attack after they had conceded the opening goal to Fletcher when Van Aanholt looked to have brought down Wilfried Zaha on the right edge of the area, although the challenge appeared to be just outside.
Van Aanholt hurt his shoulder in the tackle and was carried off on a stretcher after three minutes of medical attention on the pitch, with central defender Brown replacing him in a reshuffled back four that had Vergini moving out to the right.
Toward the end of the first half Vergini almost put Sunderland further ahead when striker Connor Wickham pulled the ball back to the edge of the area where the Argentine volleyed a stinging shot that brought a reflex diving save from Speroni.
Palace’s equalizer 10 minutes into the second half came from Sunderland’s fourth own-goal of the season, an indication of their defensive problems.
Goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon made a brilliant save on the line from Marouane Chamakh’s header, but Frazier Campbell back-heeled the ball into the middle and the unfortunate Brown turned it into the net.
“I couldn’t believe we scored another own goal,” Poyet said. “Wes Brown could not believe it himself. I don’t know if you can train that out of players, but we need to get back to basics.”
Sunderland’s Vergini powered another effort at goal close to the hour mark, only for compatriot Speroni again to make the save, but there was little the goalkeeper could do to keep out Gomez’s precise finish and Fletcher’s last-gasp goal that sealed the points.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier