Sunderland 1 Manchester City 2
Scorers: Sunderland - Whitehead (81m); Manchester City - Elano (78m pen), Vassell (86m)
Sunderland Stadium of Light
Attendance: 46,797
Barclays Premier League
Saturday April 12, 2008

A disputed penalty and some bad defending cost Sunderland dear, as a dire performance from the Lads resulted in our first defeat in four games.

Michael Chopra came into the side on the right wing in place of Carlos Edwards for the Lads, but the first half saw some really dire football, with Kieran Richardson putting the ball over from 30 yards out early on, before some defensive blunders forced Dean Whitehead to block Gelson's shot in the box.

A spell of pressure from City with Martin Petrov forcing a block out of Danny Collins, before sending a cross straight into the arms of Craig Gordon. Sunderland won a free kick from 30 yards out when Sun Jihai fouled Kenwyne Jones - Andy Reid saw his set piece dealt with, but we were denied another free kick as Richard Dunne held Jones' shirt.

City keeper Joe Hart had to deny Jones on 23 minutes, after he latched onto a pass from Richardson before beating Dunne for pace. Chopra had a shot charged down ten minutes later, before Hart did a nice tumbling act as he bumped into Jones in an attempt to clear the ball.

Gelson picked up a yellow card just before half time when he went in hard on Jones who ended up staggering around with one foot in the air for a good few seconds following a bad challenge as the first half ended all square.

Daryl Murphy fired wide shortly after the restart, as we started to get something of a foothold in the game - but we were unable to put together any flowing moves, as we saw when Chopra and Reid worked together, only for a long pass to Murphy to go off target.

Sunderland's pressure continued, but it was City who took the lead under extremely controversial circumstances, when substitute Daniel Sturridge took a tumble in the penalty box - with video replays showing that Nyron Nosworthy made no contact with the youngster. Mike Riley awarded a penalty, as Elano sent Craig Gordon the wrong way to put City ahead with 12 minutes to go.

That lead lasted just three minutes though, as Dean Whitehead scored his first goal of the season to equalise, smashing home Andy Reid's cross to give us some hope of getting something out of this game.

However, City regained the lead five minutes later, thanks to some poor defending, when Grant Leadbitter lost possession in midfielder, allowing Elano to send in Darius Vassell, whose mis-hit shot somehow went past Gordon. The Lads had four minutes of injury time, but the visitors held on through literally no attacking pressure to hand City an away win.

Sunderland: Gordon, Bardsley, Collins, Evans, Nosworthy, Chopra (sub 78, O'Donovan), Whitehead, Reid, K Richardson (sub 46, Leadbitter), Murphy (sub 61, Edwards), Jones. Subs: Fulop, McShane.

Manchester City: Hart, Jihai, Corluka, Dunne, Ball, Gelson, Elano (sub 88, Hamann), Ireland (sub 57, Sturridge; sub 82, Vassell), Johnson, M Petrov, Benjani. Subs: Isaksson, Geovanni.