Bruce: Sunderland Rewarded For Excellent Performance Against Arsenal

 

Black Cats boss delighted with point earned against Gunners.

Sunderland Manager Steve Bruce was delighted to see fortune favour his side as they snatched a 1-1 draw against Arsenal at the Stadium of Light.

The Gunners led through a bizarre Cesc Fabregas goal in the first half, but Darren Bent struck in the 95th minute for the hosts to level the scores.

Opposite number Arsene Wenger was left disappointed with officials, but Bruce was relieved to see a bit of luck go the way of his club.

“It’s nice that it’s on the other foot,” explained Bruce to ESPN. “We’ve had it happen to us repeatedly over the last 15 minutes [in previous games] so it’s jolly nice for it to happen to us for a change, it’s the second time in a couple of weeks.”

The Sunderland manager felt his star striker got his reward for an excellent performance.

He added: “Well you just want one of those chances to fall to Darren Bent. He earned his goal today because his work rate and his effort for the team were terrific. It’s not easy when you’re up [front] on your own but he did it fantastically well.”

Asked if he could credit his tactics for the result, Bruce chose to highlight the team effort required to put his ideas into practice.

He continued: “The players did that, of course you can set them up – and we’ve worked extremely hard to be what we were [difficult to beat].

“They’ve got a fluke of a goal, let’s be honest and the first half performance was excellent so we’ve got our reward for a really good team performance."