Gus Poyet lost his head but his Sunderland side gained a point in their Premier League survival quest after a second-half fightback in a ,tempestuous affair against relegation rivals, Hull City.
Poyet was sent to the stands by the referee Mike Dean following his reaction to Jack Rodwell’s 36th-minute booking for diving – a thunderous right-footed kick at a cooler, dispensing two dozen water bottles across the turf in front of the technical areas. Rather than take his medicine quietly, however, the Uruguayan ventured to his opposite number, Steve Bruce, to spark a touchline flashpoint.
He then offered his hand in a sarcastic manner, something Poyet said clearly incensed Bruce, who was only prevented from accosting his adversary by the quick-thinking of the assistant referee Stuart Burt. Neither manager would reveal the words that were exchanged afterwards, with Poyet insisting: “What happened on the pitch, stays on the pitch. It’s football, passion. Kicking bottles of water is nothing serious.”
The handshake did take place in the corridors of the KC Stadium and Bruce’s peace offering was a glass of red wine. “We will both regret it in the morning so let’s just get on with our lives,” he said. “I owe the linesman a beer because I am a big heavyweight and he was a bit of a lightweight, so he will have been exhausted trying to keep hold of me.”
Poyet’s loss of temper came at the end of a chastening 36 hours for Sunderland, with Adam Johnson, the midfielder who opened the scoring in the reverse fixture, suspended by the club on Monday in the wake of his arrest on suspicion of sexual activity with a girl under 16.
The absence of the 27-year-old winger capped a dozen times by England denied Sunderland width. It also denied a team that do not find the net with any regularity their top scorer; one of his four goals came in the reverse fixture on Boxing Day, the start of a sequence of only one win in 11 league matches.
Hull’s own woes in attack had persuaded Bruce to sign the Senegal striker Dame N’Doye on January’s deadline day and the £2.2m acquisition from Lokomotiv Moscow struck for a third time in as many starts to put Hull on course for three consecutive home wins for the first time in the Premier League.
The opportunity arose when Wes Brown’s lunge felled Ahmed Elmohamady on the edge of the area. Tom Huddlestone stepped up, fired the free-kick low into a crowded penalty area and the quick-thinking N’Doye improvised with a flick of a heel to divert the ball past Costel Pantilimon from eight yards.
N’Doye’s goal was evidence of Hull’s superiority in a fixture historically mired in petulance. Last season Sunderland had two players dismissed in a single-goal defeat and Poyet’s own indiscipline spread through his side this time – they will receive a mandatory £25,000 fine for six bookings.
In truth, they were fortunate not to see a similar reduction in numbers to last season: there was certainly an argument for Liam Bridcutt walking when he went over the top of the ball in a tackle on Nikica Jelavic less than 60 seconds into the second half, and Lee Cattermole – one of the duo dismissed here 16 months ago – did leave early, at Poyet’s intervention, when he was hauled off just after the hour, moments after being cautioned for a petulant tripping of David Meyler.
Hull continued to dominate in terms of chances created, with N’Doye lacking his usual composure twice when well-placed and the slender nature of their advantage was exposed 13 minutes from time when the substitute Patrick van Aanholt skipped to the by-line to wedge a cross over the goalkeeper Allan McGregor to the back post. Rodwell converted with a scruffy header, the ball rolling down his arm – much to Hull’s chagrin – but almost certainly only after it had crossed the line.
