| Sunderland 0-0 Man Utd The kick-off was delayed by 20 minutes after a burst water pipe brought down the ceiling in the Manchester United dressing room. And the Commonwealth Games athletes think they have it bad.The roof only fell in on United once, however, despite Sunderland's best efforts in a first half when they were on top. They will regard this as two points dropped and with it the chance to catch Chelsea at the top of the table, but after having the better of their last two games, against Liverpool and now United, Sunderland have reason to feel the same.With Michael Owen and Federico Macheda surprise choices to lead the visiting attack United caused Sunderland few problems in the first period and better home finishing and a bit more luck could have seen them behind by the interval.Sunderland created by far the better first-half chances and should have taken the lead when Lee Cattermole's excellent through ball put Steed Malbranque one on one with Edwin van der Sar only for the goalkeeper's reactions to foil a less than decisive strike.Darren Bent or Asamoah Gyan might have done better, but only one of thenm was playing, and Bent was finding it fairly hard going on his own against Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. When Sunderland gave him a fighting chance by passing to feet through the middle, however, rather than optimistically hoofing the ball skywards in his general direction, Bent showed a touch and an awareness of players around him that will please Fabio Capello in advance of his next England squad.Bent was involved in setting up the position that brought Sunderland closest to a goal eight minutes from the break. When Malbranque's initial shot was blocked the impressive Cattermole calmly fed Bolo Zenden for a follow-up attempt, to see the Dutch veteran crash a shot against Van der Sar's right-hand upright from 20 yards out.Owen and Macheda were not having the most productive of afternoons, though the real problem was that United were not playing with much width or creating anything from midfield, where Anderson, Paul Scholes and Darren Fletcher were failing to link effectively.It was hardly a surprise to see Dimitar Berbatov replace Owen at half-time but United still needed to find a way of supplying him. The Bulgarian had the ball in the net within a couple of minutes of his arrival, when the referee played a good advantage to allow Nani to break into the area, though he was correctly brought back for offside after sticking out a foot to deflect Scholes' shot past Simon Mignolet.Sir Alex Ferguson sent Javier Hernández, his midweek matchwinner, on for the last 25 minutes, though it was Sunderland who came close to scoring when Malbranque's shot deflected off Ferdinand and landed on the roof of the net. Without the defender's intervention the shot might have had at least tested Van der Sar.With Steve Bruce still resisting the temptation to send on an extra attacker to provide more of a cutting edge, the toiling Bent missed a decent opportunity at the near post from Phil Bardsley's cross.When Ferguson sent on the untested Bébé for his first taste of league action Bruce was moved into making a late double substitution, finally bringing Gyan and Andy Reid into the attack, and the game had an entertaining final 10 minutes in which either side could have pinched all three points. Berbatov shot narrowly wide at one end, an acrobatic Gyan effort was comfortably dealt with by Van der sar at the other, but this time there was to be no late breakthrough for either side.Premier LeagueSunderlandManchester UnitedPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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