Tony Mowbray’s Sunderland returned to Championship action with a bang as they beat Millwall 3-0 at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
The Black Cats swept the Lions aside with relative ease in their first match back after the break for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and have moved up to tenth in the table.
Amad Diallo opened the scoring with a simple finish from close range after excellent work from Alex Pritchard down the left allowed Ellis Simms to flick the ball into the winger’s path.
Pritchard then doubled the lead as he brilliantly evaded a number of challenges in the box before rifling in an effort that was too hot for the goalkeeper to handle.
Simms rounded out the scoring in stoppage time as he raced onto a ball over the top and lifted the ball over the Millwall shot-stopper before passing it into an empty net.
Whilst Pritchard was pulling the strings in midfield all afternoon and was heavily involved in two of the goals, the real hero for Mowbray on Saturday was central defender Danny Batth.
The former Stoke City man was a colossus at the back for the Black Cats as he repelled attack after attack with his sublime defending alongside Luke O’Nien.
He was crucial to Sunderland picking up a clean sheet in the match and made vital interventions in the first half to keep the game at 0-0, which provided the attackers with a platform to go and win the game in the second half.
Batth made a goal-saving clearance off the line in the first half after Anthony Patterson watched the ball go over his head and consistently won his individual duels and was in the right place at the right time to cut out attacks.
Was Batth the man of the match?
As per Sofascore, he won 11 of his 14 battles (79%) and made ten clearances, one tackle, one interception, and four blocks across the 90 minutes, whilst not being dribbled past a single time.
These statistics show that the 6 foot 3 titan was sensational for Sunderland as he dominated the opposition from a physical perspective and put his body on the line multiple times to preserve the clean sheet.
He was also composed and reliable on the ball as he completed 81% of his attempted passes and only lost possession 12 times from 77 touches, which shows that he was not a liability on the other side of the game.
