City 2 Sunderland 1

Last updated : 27 September 2011 By Mark Burchett & John Maiden

One of the reports on this match described Sunderland as being lacklustre! Well Steve Bruce's Black Cats may not have been purring as smoothly as they did in their 4 - 0 victory over Stoke, but that was largely due to the fact that the Canaries rarely gave them the chance to get into their stride, let alone pounce on goal!

As it happened, all three goals in the game were top quality, but by the time Kieran Richardson got his name on the scoresheet Norwich had done more than enough to deserve all three points.

Leon Barnett made sure he was in the right place at the right time in the 31st minute to turn in Elliott Bennett's low right wing cross.

HALF-TIME: City 1 Sunderland 0

And just three minutes after the re-start Steve Morison did even better when he headed in Marc Tierney's clever lofted cross from the left.

This was Tierney's sixth start in as many games and it is not difficult to see why Paul Lambert has made him his first choice left back. At Bolton Tierney made sure the referee was aware that he had been on the receiving end of a head butt, and who would blame him, other than a couple of TV soccer pundits who seemed to have forgotten the elbow in the mouth suffered by James Vaughan, which was not seen by referee Mark Halsey when West Brom inflicted a rare home defeat on Norwich.

Let's face it, this is the Premier League, where big money is at stake and it's up to the players to make certain the referee knows when they have been the victims of foul play!

Next stop Old Trafford, which would be the ideal place to keep a clean sheet for the first time this season and - after United had to settle for a point against the Potters - who would bet against the rampant Canaries making it an unlikely three wins on the spin next Saturday?

FULL-TIME: City 2 Sunderland 1