Sunderland relegated as Liam Boyce’s injury-time winner gives Burton hope

Hostile chants of: “Are you watching Ellis Short?” echoed around the ground as late goals from Darren Bent and Liam Boyce consigned Sunderland to a second successive relegation while offering Burton an, albeit extremely frayed, Championship lifeline.

As the Sunderland manager, Chris Coleman, stared at the ground and with the home fans’ anger at their absentee landlord swiftly exhausted, an eerie silence descended. Burton manager Nigel Clough simply looked bemused.

If his side are to survive they must beat Bolton at home, win away at Preston and hope other results go their way but, after this turnaround, anything will seem possible. Trailing for much of the game, everything turned on it’s head for the visitors after the former Sunderland striker Bent stepped off the bench and entirely changed the narrative, before a controversial last-gasp Sunderland equaliser was disallowed due to Paddy McNair’s perceived handball.

READ MORE: Wolves crowned Championship winners

READ MORE: Championship review: Wolves up, Cardiff second

READ MORE: Ranked - the 10 best players in the Championship

The sight of Clough in the away technical area prompted thoughts of what might have been among Wearsiders. Some are old enough to have seen Brian Clough score 63 goals in 74 games for Sunderland before ripped knee ligaments brought his playing career to a cruelly abrupt end.

One of Clough senior’s biggest regrets was not eventually returning to manage a club which always remained close to his heart and, when talk of Nigel leaving Burton to return to the city of his birth and take charge at the Stadium of Light occurred last summer, there was a sense that a form of destiny might about to be belatedly fulfilled.

Instead he stayed put in the Midlands, Simon Grayson was hired, then swiftly sacked by Sunderland, before Coleman stepped into what must be one of English football’s most toxic tracksuits.

After only two home league wins all season the atmosphere inside one of England’s finest stadiums has long been similarly unhealthy. In this match, early and horribly misplaced passes from Lee Cattermole and McNair emphasised the tension paralysing Coleman’s team.

McNair though has generally proved a positive midfield force since returning from a serious knee injury and the former Manchester United player offered Sunderland a 34th-minute lifeline by scoring his third goal in three games.

Ashley Fletcher has looked anything but the new Clough - (either Brian or Nigel) - since taking on the No 9 shirt for Coleman after arriving on loan from Middlesbrough but the centre forward did extremely well to stay on his feet under pressure and cue the midfielder up.

As McNair’s resultant shot, struck from outside the area, travelled under Stephen Bywater and nestled in the bottom corner, optimists of a mathematical bent began tentatively charting Sunderland’s great escape route from the bottom three.

However the moment soon arrived for Burton to remind their hosts that they did not regard their own chances of avoiding relegation as entirely extinguished either. When Lucas Akins’ cross was met by a negligently unmarked Joe Sbarra an equaliser seemed inevitable but

Sbarra’s connection was faulty and his volley flew off target. Coleman breathed again.

Goalkeeping has not been Sunderland’s forte this season but Jason Steele did extremely well to repel Jacob Davenport’s second-half shot as Clough pressed every available tactical button.

On came Bent, once Sunderland’s star striker, but never forgiven for forcing through a move to Aston Villa. “Only one greedy bastard, one greedy bastard,” chorused a previously flat, suddenly loud and animated, 25,000+ crowd (well, that was the official figure) as Bent stepped off Burton’s bench.

Although Steele performed wonders to parry Hope Akpan’s shot, Bent sneaked in front of substitute Jake Clarke-Salter to head home the rebound in the 86th minute. Soon after that, Boyce met Ben Turner’s cross to head the stoppage time winner.

Yet the drama was not quite over, Sunderland having what they briefly though was a late equaliser ruled out.