Boxing Day defeat for Hull City as Jack Clarke lights up MKM Stadium in Sunderland success

Jack Clarke’s brilliant shot eight minutes from time destroyed Hull City’s Christmas celebrations as the winger lit up the MKM Stadium with a strike that sealed Sunderland’s 1-0 victory.

Clarke’s rasping drive put an end to City’s consecutive defeats after the game, which was goalless for the majority of a dull match. City found it difficult to get going in front of a sold-out MKM Stadium crowd.

Up until the Clarke winner, City’s defense was excellent. Liam Delap’s goalbound attempt was expertly stopped by visiting goalkeeper Anthony Patterson, although Aaron Connolly will regret missing his earlier opportunity.

Rosenior was forced into one of his two changes with Ryan Allsop unable to take his place in the starting XI owing to the back injury he picked up in Friday night’s defeat at Bristol City. Regan Slater came back into the side on the left side at the expense of Cyrus Christie and there was a return to the fold for Allahyar Sayyadmanesh.

The opening 25 minutes were fairly quiet, with both sides exchanging attacks without testing their respective goalkeepers. If pushed hard, you’d probably say the visitors were the happier. City were unable to gain any great control and conceded a fair amount of territory to the Black Cats, while looking like a threat, were not testing Ingram – their eight first-half efforts all failing to hit the target.

On the other side, Connolly attempted a hard shot on Patterson’s midriff and Morton’s spectacular run made the Sunderland keeper parry, but in all honesty, it was nothing like the action that took place at Ashton Gate on Friday night. In a boring forty-five minutes of play, City may have had more of the ball, but theirs was the only shot on goal.

The opportunity that City had been waiting for arrived at the beginning of the second half when Ozan found Twine at the back post after a wonderful cross from Morton. Twine then played the ball back to Connolly eight yards out, and Connolly’s soft effort under no pressure was easy for Patterson to handle and nearly caught the Sunderland goalie off guard.

With Sunderland’s pressure again building, the Tigers broke with terrific play from Ozan and Delap with the latter getting himself into the area before forcing Patterson into a save, albeit a fairly straightforward one.

Sunderland continued to threaten with Greaves, Jones and then Coyle making timely blocks before Rosenior made a double change just shy of the hour mark. Coyle, who had run himself into the ground was replaced by Cyrus Christie, and Connolly was replaced by Jason Lokilo.

All of a sudden, the game came alive inside a few seconds. At one end, Ingram made a brilliant save to deny Roberts and from the counter, Patterson did similar to deny Delap at the other with a rasping drive across goal.

When Jack Clarke cut in off the left side and fizzed a rocket into the bottom corner of Ingram’s net with eight minutes remaining, the hosts were down. Ingram never saw it.

In lieu of Twine and Slater, Rosenior substituted Harry Vaughan and Adama Traore for the last minutes. However, the visiting supporters relished their Christmas away day, leaving City to lament yet another loss and make sure they must bounce back against Blackburn Rovers on Friday night.

City: Ingram, Coyle, Greaves, Jones, Slater, Morton, Seri, Ozan, Twine, Delap, Connolly. Subs: Lo-Tutala, Traore, Docherty, Allahyar, Vaughan, Lokilo, Christie, Jacob, McLoughlin.

Sunderland: Roberts, Bellingham, Clarke, Dack, Hume, Neil, Patterson, Seelt, O’Nien, Ballard, and Ekwah. Bishop, Pembele, Burstow, Rusyn, Ba, Pritchard, Triantis, Aouchiche, and Mayenda are the substitutes.

Courtesy of S Singh Gill

24,420 people in attendance