Pete Sixsmith was pulled up here by a Spurs fan (Telboy) for suggesting in his Observer match verdict that it could have ended Sunderland 6 Tottenham 1. What Telboy couldn’t have realised was the Pete also said it might have been 3-3 (that less sexy bit being cut out). We shouldn’t be greedy, but there’s no denying 6-1 was strictly speaking feasible (two missed pens, one disallowed goal) and would have been very nice indeed …
It crossed my mind to use “Broken nose Bruce slaughters Flannel faced ‘Arry” as my seven-word summary, but I felt this might upset the sensitivities of any passing Spurs fans, so decided on the more prosaic words you can find elsewhere on this site .
It was a wonderfully exciting game of football and if Ellis Short and Niall Quinn wanted to present any wavering renewers with a good reason for parting with a wad of money for next season, then this game provided perfect ammunition.