Sunderland 1 Newcastle 0: Mike Ashley's 'club zero' Newcastle turn up for a Cup final in grey

COMMENT: Dick Advocaat was delighted to be able to reveal how shattered the players all were in the dressing room afterwards

The Sunderland players celebrate after the final whistle as Newcastle’s Mike Williamson trudges away (Getty)

Helicopters above Wearside and Tyneside from the early hours; police lying in wait on the A19; horses and cordons outside the Stadium of Light; lurid abuse; applause in the 17th minute for John Alder and Liam Sweeney, the Newcastle fans killed last July in flight MH17, that spread around the sunlit ground; a goal from Jermain Defoe for the ages; and all of it bathed in noise fit for a Cup final. It was some day.

“Cup final”. Those last two words were the key to this euphoria on the Wear and desolation on the Tyne.

This has been Dick Advocaat’s cliché of choice since he got the job as Sunderland manager a fortnight ago. He repeated it in the match programme and was given a cup-tie performance from his new players. Sunderland tackled, ran, took risks, recovered.

Advocaat was delighted to be able to reveal how shattered they all were in the dressing room afterwards. That is what any manager wants, especially on derby day.

For Newcastle United, there was no such happy weariness. As their tired fans could tell you at length, “Cup final” are two words not in their club’s vocabulary and that was made plain here. Making progress in cups can get you relegated, apparently.

Mike Ashley’s Newcastle are a bottom-line outfit. Profits not prophets. The businessman of zero-hours contracts ignominy has created club zero. Zero ambition, zero ammunition, Newcastle United – the famous Newcastle United of the black-and-white stripes – turned up in Sunderland wearing grey.

It was a declaration of beige intent and on that front the assembly of cheap Dutchmen, Frenchmen and local boys delivered. It was 72 minutes before Sunderland keeper Costel Pantilimon made a save of note. It was Newcastle’s only one on target.

Their fans, housed high in the away end, have now witnessed five straight derby defeats. They are a mix of the apoplectic and apathetic.

They are aware that they, and they alone under this regime, make Newcastle a big club. They turn up in tens of thousands and ask to be represented with grit and style. Yesterday Newcastle had neither.

Only when interim manager John Carver appeared at the press conference to describe the full range of his “embarrassment” did the Geordies have an individual of those qualities and, as Carver’s critics on Tyneside will say, it was 90 minutes too late for that.

He ran through a list of injuries, with some justification, and defended some of his players, though not all. But the football bottom line is that Newcastle have taken five points from a possible 24 since the January transfer window closed. It is Liverpool away next followed by Tottenham at home. As Carver acknowledged, it could get worse.

Twelve months after selling the heartbeat of their team, Yohan Cabaye, Newcastle sold defender Davide Santon to Internazionale in the last window. Carver argued here that Santon manufactured the move.

Sunderland acquired Defoe in January. The contrast between the two rival clubs’ business looked spectacular yesterday.

Defoe was hired from Toronto on wages, allegedly, of £80,000 per week. Newcastle would not sanction such a deal, and in a way that strategy can be understood. When a club is revealing profits on the back of soaring television revenues, less so.

Sunderland have gambled. But they did manage to send Jozy Altidore the other way, and while Defoe had scored only twice before his sumptuous volley, the acquisition of such ability is what may keep Sunderland in the division.

How they need it. Defoe missed a great chance at West Ham in Advocaat’s first match two weeks ago and his strike against Burnley at the end of January was the last Sunderland goal at the Stadium of Light before yesterday. (That is another context in which to see Newcastle’s display).

But when Defoe belted in the winner just before half-time Sunderland’s spending policy appeared understandable and if he can score one or two more winners in the seven games left – as well as boosting those around him – Defoe could well come to look like a bargain.

They have already taken to him on Wearside and this effort had some of Kevin Phillips’ drama. For some Wearside veterans it brought back a memory of Kevin Arnott’s celebrated volley against Newcastle at Roker Park in 1977. That is the folklore element of days like this.

Defoe has entered that and long after the patient – dare one say it – Poyet football Sunderland practised at the back and in midfield, where Lee Cattermole lived up to his “controller” moniker given by Advocaat, it will be Defoe’s goal that people talk about 30 years from now.

Considering the last home game – the 4-0 humiliation against Aston Villa – Sunderland were unrecognisable, except they are the same players.

That raises questions about them and the end of the Gustavo Poyet era and, although the joy was overflowing when Pantilimon grabbed that last desperate Newcastle cross, the thought of Crystal Palace here on Saturday should sober a few up this morning. Palace, managed by Alan Pardew.

But for last night Sunderland have their local history and their immediate impetus. They have put pressure on the likes of Hull City, and Newcastle. In a slog of a season for both North-east clubs, elbowing your neighbour is as good as it gets.