Sunderland – Newcastle United: Heavy-Hits, Halfspaces And Own-Goal Heroics (1-0)

All the activity was spent on tackles and exchanges, rather than creative final third passages and shots. However, the Newcastle United defensive arrangement matched poorly against Sunderland’s positional rotations, and an own goal handed a famous win.

Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.

It had been ten years since the last Tyne-Wear derby in the Premier League, and newly-promoted Sunderland, surpassing expectations, whilst Newcastle United found inconsistency, gave this game a whole new angle.

Sunderland’s overperformance can be attributed to Régis Le Bris keeping his team in a compact 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 defensive structure, without much high pressing, depending on the opponent, even when the squad had been massively bolstered by new signings. In possession, wide positional rotations have been a strong asset to their play, and against the intense pressure of the big clubs, they’ve had the exits out of their third. Underlying numbers suggest that their results will dip, but Le Bris has done a fantastic job in taking relegation out of the equation for now.

When Sunderland was struggling to get back up the divisions, Newcastle were being taken over by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, yet they entered the Derby below their rivals in the standings. Eddie Howe has kept his team playing in the same way, established on intensity and tempo to create varied attacks down the channels. However, they have not been able to pin teams back as consistently as they would like to dictate, reflected in a poor away record and twelfth-placed position; but rivalries can throw form out the window.

Le Bris . . .