Keane's Cats too cool for Owls

Sunderland continued their revival under new boss Roy Keane with a 1-0 win in the North East in front of the Championship's biggest attendance of the season, just shy of 37,000 fans. Paul Sturrock made three changes to the side downed 2-1 at Hull last week. Brad Jones came in for Chris Adamson between the sticks, Yoann Folly returned from injury making his first showing since early August and there was the first start in 16 months for Drew Talbot, favoured ahead of Steven MacLean.

Talbot's lack of sharpness in front of goal proved costly early on. Burton O'Brien provided the youngster with a fantastic chance in the 12th minute but he took a touch when there was no time for one, and the chance went a miss. Wednesday's back four have, despite a string of disappointing results, been pretty good having conceded nine from nine. And they kept the Owls in this one for the majority of the game too. Dwight Yorke, Danny Collins and former Owls loanee Daryl Murphy all went close in the first half.

The game needed only one goal though and it came just short of the hour mark. Grant Leadbitter converted a Liam Lawrence cross to put the Black Cats ahead. Paul Sturrock threw on Steve Adams for a tired Folly and the more attacking duo of Wade Small and MacLean for the remainder of the contest, but none could make the difference required to take at least a point.

This was Wednesday's third defeat on the trot and they are now winless in over six weeks of football.

Sturrock verdict: "Our season starts on 14 October. We've got a lot of players to come back from injury." "We've been competitive in every game but we've lost too many of them 1-0. I shook every player's hand because the only thing I didn't get out of them was blood."