Sunderland delight as Josh Maja sinks Fulham to end barren home year

At the final whistle a joyous smile spread across the face of Josh Maja and it looked as if it would take some removing. Five minutes after stepping off the bench to make his league debut for Chris Coleman’s side, the 18-year-old striker had expertly turned his marker and scored the goal which would secure Sunderland’s first home win for 364 days.

The year since Watford were beaten here on 17 December last year has been particularly grim – and sometimes downright gruesome – for the Wearsiders but, remarkably, a crowd of 25,904 turned up to see Maja simultaneously lift Sunderland out of the relegation zone and offer hope of a brighter future.

Coleman has pledged to “endeavour to make the Stadium of Light a fortress again”. Accordingly the former Wales manager armed Sunderland with a five-man defence but they lived dangerously when Ryan Sessegnon advanced from left-back and sent a menacing ball whizzing across the area. Robbin Ruiter, the home goalkeeper, must have momentarily feared the worst but the delivery was too slick for Stefan Johansen, whose out-stretched boot could not quite connect with the ball.

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Reprieved, Coleman’s players regrouped, started seeing quite a bit of the ball and looked a potentially decent team. With Darron Gibson impressing in central midfield for the home side (at times it was tempting to wonder if the Gibson horribly prone to having shockers on this ground had a twin brother who was deputising for him) Fulham were definitely not having things all their own way.

Not that Slavisa Jokanovic looked exactly distraught. A manager who worked with Martin Bain, Sunderland’s chief executive, during the pair’s time in Israel with Maccabi Tel Aviv knew that the home side were only really creating half-chances, leaving Marcus Bettinelli, his goalkeeper, largely under-exerted.

While Bettinelli made fairly routine saves from Gibson and George Honeyman, Ruiter was stretched to the limit as he did well to deny Johansen. The former Utrecht goalkeeper then reacted smartly to snuff out the danger after Tyias Browning’s tackle had prevented Tom Cairney from scoring in two frantic minutes late in the first half.

As the interval approached, Fulham had seemed to up their game, with one particular counterattack leaving Ruiter again looking relieved as an unmarked Oliver Norwood headed Rui Fonte’s cross fractionally wide.

Admittedly Lewis Grabban’s header from Adam Matthew’s left wing cross might well have beaten Bettinelli but it was skewed slightly off target after taking a slight deflection off a defender.

With Cairney starting to sporadically show off his class – something epitomised in one cameo featuring the Scotland midfielder gliding past Gibson – Fulham began to dominate possession. Yet even if it was, at times, easy to see why Rafael Benítez is so keen to take Cairney to Newcastle United and why Jokanovic values him at £20m, the London side were never completely in control.

Neither, it must be said, were Sunderland but they did begin the second half by upping the tempo, creating a flurry of chances and being extremely unfortunate not to have taken the lead. Hats off to Bettinelli for a fabulous save to deny James Vaughan. The striker’s powerful header from around eight yards out appeared to be destined for the bottom corner until the goalkeeper dived low and somehow tipped the ball back upwards on to the bar and away to safety.

Despite much sustained pressure, Sunderland remained vulnerable to counterattacks and Coleman opted to introduce a touch more midfield control in the shape of Didier Ndong. The Gabon international is the club’s £13.6m record signing but, even with Lee Cattermole suspended in the wake of his dismissal in last weekend’s creditable 0-0 draw at Wolves, Ndong could not make the starting XI here. It will be no surprised if he is moved on next month.

Maja and Joel Asoro will definitely be staying put. In a bold double substitution, Coleman introduced the two bright young strikers, withdrawing Grabban and Vaughan. Within minutes he was rewarded when Maja, once part of Fulham’s youth system, met Matthew’s low ball, swivelled away from his marker in wonderfully assured fashion and beat Bettinelli with a low shot from around eight yards.

The resultant emotion was such that Coleman seemed temporarily frozen in a sort of shell-shocked disbelief before briefly blowing his cheeks out with sheer relief.