Sunderland vs Southampton match report: Jordi Gomez is spot-on as Sunderland spy chink of light

Sunderland 2 Southampton 1: James Ward-Prowse was sent-off for Southampton who scored through Sadio Mane

Jordi Gomez scores from the penalty spot (Getty Images)

There is a magic number for those scrapping for their lives to cling on to the Premier League bounty: it is 36.8.

Sunderland’s second home victory since January, and the first time they have scored two at the Stadium of Light since that month, moved them to 33 points. It has been a long, miserable slog to get there, but a chink of light emerged yesterday with the two penalties Jordi Gomez stroked past Kelvin Davis.

It was never pretty and in the 94th minute Costel Pantilimon had to produce a superb save to deny Toby Alderweireld. The value of that particular moment will only become apparent in the final, fraught weeks.

Sunderland could not afford defeat yesterday. It was that simple. They have away games at Everton, Arsenal and Chelsea and you cannot see them bringing much back to the north-east from those hunting grounds.They are still in the bottom three and need four points if the average 17th place finishing total of the last 10 years – 36.8 points – is to be reached.

But yesterday’s victory was about hauling in a team above them that has lost eight successive games for the first time in its history. If there was a spring in the step of those in red and white, it was not just because of an unlikely victory against Southampton, it was because the gap to their free-falling north-east rivals Newcastle is now just two points.

Jordi Gomez celebrates for Sunderland (Getty Images)

Dick Advocaat took great delight in informing everyone he had produced seven points since taking over from Gus Poyet, but there is much work to be done: “I was really happy with the final whistle. For them it was so important to get the points. They gave nothing away. We showed they have the fight to get the points. The fighting was great but we can play better.

“Knowing the results from the other teams it was really necessary to win. It was a real team performance. They worked so hard to get this result. In the end we also deserved it.”

Sadio Mane scores for Southampton (Getty Images)

Jose Fonte gave away the first penalty after 21 minutes and Gomez calmly beat Davis. Within two minutes Sebastian Coates and Pantilimon clattered into John O’Shea and the ball broke to Sadio Mané, who equalised.

A second penalty, when James Ward-Prowse brought down Jermain Defoe, 10 minutes into the second half, saw the Southampton midfielder sent off. Gomez was again unfazed.

Gomez celebrates his match-winning penalty (Getty Images)

Southampton rallied and were much better with 10 than they had been with 11, but Sunderland found a resilience they will have to build on. Southampton must too hope this campaign, one filled with such promise, is not allowed to drift.

“Liverpool don’t win all the games,” said Southampton’s Ronald Koeman. “It is three games to play to the end of the season but I expected much more than we saw today. We didn’t reach our level and with one player less we were the better team.”

Line-ups:

Sunderland: (4-1-4-1) Pantilimon; Jones, Coates, O’Shea (Vergini, 31), Van Aanholt; Cattermole; Defoe (Johnson, 83), Larsson (Rodwell, 83), Gomez, Wickham; Graham.

Southampton: (4-2-3-1) Davis; Clyne, Fonte, Yoshida, Bertrand; Wanyama (Davis, 64), Alderweireld; Long (Djuricic, 46), Ward-Prowse, Mane (Elia, 70); Pelle.

Referee: Mike Jones.

Man of the match: Graham (Sunderland).

Match rating: 7/10.