It was an extraordinary game in which Sunderland defied the might of Old Trafford for nearly 91 minutes until a lucky deflection, followed by the kindest of rebounds, gave Man United their winner. Forget Setanta, this is the Salut! Sunderland analysis: forget Craig Burley’s hard-of-thinking bombast, trust Pete Sixsmith to do the story justice…..

We nearly got away with it. For 90 minutes, the alleged giants of world football had huffed and puffed and threatened to blow our house down. Just when we thought we had seen off the big bad wolf, they had one last blow and with the help of a friendly post they got the winner that they probably deserved on the balance of play.

But didn’t we do well? The game plan was dead simple: stop them scoring by getting all 10 outfield players behind the ball and then if we get it, kick it away as far as we can.

It reminded me of games of Attack and Defence we played as kids, where the object of the game was to prevent a score. After a period of being a defender and hoofing the ball on to the Black Path, you would then become attackers and try to score a goal past Dennis Robinson or John Taylor – or in my case, hoof the ball into the adjacent tennis courts. It was a “skill” that United’s attackers replicated perfectly.

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