Tony Gillan: Andre Marriner and Alan Green fail to dampen Sunderland victory

Andre tried manfully to uphold his unstinting incompetence over years of ruining Sunderland games.

He didn’t quite ruin the game, but had a jolly good go by failing to award a penalty that was beyond “nailed on.” The nails were nailed on. A clear foul by Danny Simpson on Patrick van Aanholt.

It wasn’t just that. Andre had a poor afternoon all round. So it was one of his best ever displays.

BBC Television sent the egomaniac “Goodness Gracious” Green to burble on the fixture; presumably because, unlike when he is inflicted on radio listeners, Match of the Day doesn’t require co-commentators and no one wants to sit next to him.

Gibberish from the worst commentator ever to wear headphones included: “Jermain Defoe has scored the second goal that emphatically means that Sunderland are going to beat the champions.”

If Alan thinks that a two goal lead with a minimum of 13 minutes remaining means “game over” then he can’t have been paying much attention down the years.

He certainly can’t know much about Sunderland.

Still; it’s nice that Andre and Alan, in their own maladroit way, are wholly reliable.