Sunderland v Everton: Premier League – live! via The Guardian
7.14pm BST
Sunderland’s MO, then, well established through the years, is to faff around in the drop zone for the majority of the season before clambering out just before the day of reckoning. This week’s Knowledge reports on the yin to their yang: the clubs who manage to stay out of the relegation places all season, only to haplessly drop into them at the very last minute. Oops!
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Football teams relegated despite not being in the drop zone all season | The Knowledge
6.58pm BST
Chelsea might have been something of a shower this season, by their own lofty standards, but whichever way you spin it, they were the defending champions. And at the weekend, Sunderland came from behind, at a point when things began to look very dark indeed, to beat them rather gloriously. No changes to the team, then.
Everton definitely have shower-related issues right now, to the point where a fair old chunk of the support wants shot of Roberto Martinez. Two matches to save his job? Possibly. With a desperate battle in mind, the manager recalls Ramiro Funes Mori and Gareth Barry, who are back from suspension and injury respectively. The pair take the places of Bryan Oviedo and Aaron Lennon, who started the dismal defeat at the new champs Leicester City. Kevin Mirallas is also back in the starting XI, at the expense of the currently misfiring £13.5m striker Oumar Niasse.
6.47pm BST
Sunderland: Mannone, Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, Van Aanholt, Kirchhoff, Borini, Cattermole, M’Vila, Khazri, Defoe.
Subs: Jones, Larsson, Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, O’Shea, Watmore.
Everton: Robles, Stones, Pennington, Funes Mori, Baines, McCarthy, Barry, Mirallas, Barkley, Cleverley, Lukaku.
Subs: Gibson, Oviedo, Lennon, Niasse, Besic, Osman, Howard.
10.44am BST
It’s easy to forget just how much bother Sunderland were in. At the end of 2015, having been defeated five times in a row, the Black Cats were in a black funk. They were second from bottom in the Premier League table, just four points ahead of a risible Aston Villa, five shy of neighbours Newcastle United, and seven short of safety. This time, surely, they were for the off.
Ah, but give Sam Allardyce time to do his thing. The subsequent turnaround hasn’t been spectacular, but it has been steady. Allardyce has transformed Sunderland from serial losers into a team who are hard to beat. Since the start of February, when they were extremely unfortunate to lose at home to Manchester City, the Mackems have only tasted defeat twice. And one of those matches was against Leicester City, who have been the boss of
absolutely everyone. It’s been an admirable sequence.
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