Swansea City 2-2 Sunderland | Premier League match report

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<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.24.1.1/69843?ns=guardian&pageName=Swansea+City+2-2+Sunderland+%7C+Premier+League+match+report%3AArticle%3A1795486&ch=Football&c3=Obs&c4=Premier+League+%28Football%29%2CSwansea+City+%28football+club%29%2CSunderland+%28Football%29%2CFootball%2CSport&c5=Premier+League&c6=Joe+Lovejoy&c7=12-Sep-01&c8=1795486&c9=Article&c10=Match+report&c11=Football&c13=&c25=&c30=content&c42=Sport&h2=GU%2FSport%2FFootball%2FPremier+League" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>The script was there, but Sunderland hadn't read it, and two goals from their record signing, Steven Fletcher, prevented Swansea from going top of the Premier League 10 years after they had been bottom of the fourth tier.</p><p>Fletcher, for whom Martin O'Neill paid Wolves £12m, celebrated his league debut for the club with two goals in the first half on a bad day for the Welsh club. Not only did they drop two points at home, they lost left-back Neil Taylor with a dislocated ankle and had another defender, Chico Flores, sent off after 70 minutes for kicking Louis Saha.</p><p>On Friday, Swansea broke the club record by paying Valencia £5.55m for Pablo Hernández to replace Scott Sinclair, who had been sold to Manchester City for £6.2m. Hernández joined too late to be eligible here and, unsurprisingly, the Swans' starting lineup was unchanged after their stirring start to the season.</p><p>Sunderland fell away badly towards the end of last season, winning just one of their last 10 games to finish a disappointing 13th. Nobody scored more than Nicklas Bendtner's eight league goals – a situation Martin O'Neill has sought to remedy by signing Fletcher.</p><p>The Welsh club suffered their first blow after 15 minutes when Taylor was carried off on a stretcher, having dislocated an ankle in a tit-for-tat scrap with Craig Gardner.</p><p>Sunderland took the lead after 40 minutes, when an underhit backpass from Ashley Williams let in Fletcher, who ran on unchallenged before curling a nicely-executed shot with his left foot, across Michel Vorm and just inside the far post.</p><p>A slow burner eventually caught fire when the first half went into six minutes of injury time. The equaliser came when Nathan Dyer's clever short chip played in Wayne Routledge, who scored with an emphatic rising drive from eight yards. Sunderland regained the lead with the stopwatch showing 50 minutes, Fletcher nudging home his second from point blank range after Seb Larsson's free-kick had reached the far post via a couple of maladroit attempts at a clearance.</p><p>The Swans threatened to equalise again when Simon Mignolet saved, but could not hold Jonathan de Guzmán's free-kick and Danny Graham, following in, had his shot cleared off the line by Carlos Cuéllar. Chico, too was desperately close with a bouncing header from six yards. A goal was clearly coming, and midway through the second half Michu headed in a long, diagonal ball from De Guzmán.</p><p>The balance then changed in another sense when Chico was sent off, inevitably, for going into a touchline challenge on Saha with a boot raised, and kicking the substitute in the back of the head.</p><p>The 10 men pressed relentlessly for the winner, but it wasn't their day.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premierleague">Premier League</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/swansea">Swansea City</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/sunderland">Sunderland</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/joe-lovejoy">Joe Lovejoy</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> &copy; 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /><img width='1' height='1' src='http://guardian.co.uk.feedsportal.com/c/34708/f/639039/s/22f822c3/mf.gif' border='0'/>
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