Oxford United 1 Sunderland 2: Story of the day as Elliot Embleton goal gives Cats huge win at the Kassam Stadium
and live on Freeview channel 276
The Black Cats took the lead when Corry Evans opened the scoring with a low shot in the 16th minute, yet U’s defender Elliott Moore headed the hosts level before half-time.
Both sides had chances in the second half before Sunderland substitute Elliot Embleton scored a dramatic winner two minutes from the end.
The result moved Sunderland back into the play-off places as league rivals Wycombe and Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth all dropped points.
Here’s how the game played out:
RECAP: Oxford United 1 (Moore, 36) Sunderland 2 (Evans, 16) (Embleton, 88)
Key Events
- Sunderland XI: Patterson Winchester, Wright, Cirkin, Gooch, Evans, Matete, Clarke (Embleton, 85), Roberts (O’Nien, 45), Broadhead (Batth, 78) Stewart
- Subs: Hoffmann, Doyle, Hume, Batth, Embleton, Neil, O’Nien
- Oxford XI: Stevens, Long (Winnall, 90), Moore, McNally, Brown, Kane, Bodin, Brannagan, Sykes, Holland (Whyte, 61), Taylor
- Subs: Eastwood, Willians, Forde, McGuane, Whyte, Seddon, Winnall
Neil on Oxford
Here’s what Sunderland boss Alex Neil had to say about today’s opponents.
“They’re a good side, they are where they are on merit.
“They’re right up there in terms of goalscoring in the division so we understand that they’re a good team and that they will bring a threat.
“We went to watch them against Morecambe and they deserved to win the game, but they didn’t and that shows you how difficult this league can be.
“The performance merited three points so we know that it is going to be a tough match for us, and we will have to play as well as we can.
“I anticipate a team which I think will throw caution to the wind. I think they’ll go for it, Karl’s teams are naturally attacking anyway, they never really set up to be defensive.
“You can see that they’re well coached and that they have good players, so I think it’ll make for an entertaining game.
“They’ve fluctuated between a back three and a back four of late so they could do either, which we’ll be equipped to deal with.
“It’s going to be a tough game.”
We’ll start with the Sunderland team news.
Black Cats boss Alex Neil said on Thursday that there were no new injury concerns to contend with following last weekend’s 1-0 win over Gillingham.
Neil is hoping Nathan Broadhead (who came off the bench) and Alex Pritchard (Who started against Gillingham) will be able to start increasing their workload after making successful comebacks from injury seven days ago.
Centre-back Danny Batth also returned to the starting XI against Gillingham.
It’s Matchday!
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Sunderland’s big League One fixture against play-off rivals Oxford United.
The Black Cats have just six games remaining, and the margin for error is slim if they want to finish inside the top six.
We’ll have all the build-up ahead of the match, as well as in-game analysis and post-match reaction.
Stick around and refresh the page for live updates.