Saturday, 3rd October 2009 – KO: 17:30

This is our last game for two weeks because of yet another International break and Fergie will no doubt be wanting us to sign off as League leaders, especially with Chelsea and Liverpool slugging it out on Sunday.

Sunderland have been a funny side for us over the years. Given their up and down form, you would probably expect us to have beaten them pretty comfortably on most occasions but this just hasn’t been the case, especially at Old Trafford.

Our best two wins against them in recent years were a 4-0 win (2007) and a 3-1 win (2005) but both of those came at their place. At Old Trafford, the results have tended to be far more cagey. 1-0 last season, 1-0 in 2007, 0-0 in 2006 and the next game after that was back in 2003 and even then we only beat them 2-1.

So, whilst Sunderland’s record against us has been generally poor (they never win), they don’t leave Old Trafford on the receiving end of a hammering.

With Steve Bruce at the helm these days, it is probably fair to suggest that they will be a far tougher nut to crack.

They are currently sitting in 8th place in the league which is a great start for them but it has been their home form which has been their saviour so far this season; away from home, they have lost two of their three games so far.

I’m not going to go into too much detail with this one. We have a great squad at the moment and whoever Fergie chooses, you just know they will be up for this one but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Fergie makes one or two unexpected changes here.

I think we will win and something about 2-0 is ringing in my ears but I also wouldn’t be too surprised if Sunderland give us another tough game which means that we only win by one goal.

I’m not going overboard on the points for this bet though.

The bet is 3 points Sunderland +1.5 @ 2.18 with Canbet.

A bad day at the office for United here as they started extremely sluggishly and were a goal down within seven minutes.

Normally, that would act as a wake up call but on this occasion it didn’t even seem to register with the players as they continued to play very sloppily with passes going astray all over the place.

Fergie rang the changes at half-time and brought on Anderson in an attempt to give the midfield a bit more dynamism and to an extent it worked although even he seemed to catch the bad-passing bug in the opening exchanges of the second half.

The breakthrough came when the resurgent Berbatov scored a cracking goal.

This should have settled United but incredibly they found themselves a goal down yet again within a few minutes.

Still United couldn’t seem to muster any clear cut chances and the game (and the points) appeared to be drifting away from us.

At the end of normal time, the assistant referee showed four minutes of extra time and finally, United seemed galvanised into some form of action as almost the entire four minutes was played in and around the Sunderland penalty area.

We got our reward after about two minutes of added time when Evra swung his foot at the ball and it took a wicked deflection off Anton Ferdinand and into the Sunderland goal.

It still wasn’t over however as Nani, who had previously been delivering some poor balls suddenly put in some excellent corners and I did feel that we could have nicked the points at the end.

Given that there was a goal scored in added time, the referree seemed to blow his whistle far too soon (he played around four minutes two seconds). Clutching at the staws of a few seconds here and there might seem desperate but Sunderland looked gone at this stage and another decent ball into the box might have produced something.

Or it might not have…

To be quite honest, we didn’t deserve three points here today and, to be quite honest, Sunderland probably deserved more than a draw but we have been rewarded yet again for not giving up and playing right to the final whistle.

The bet won comfortably and yet again, Sunderland came to Old Trafford and gave us plenty to think about, but have failed to leave with three points.