Sunderland 0 - 0 Palace

Saturday January 6 2001 - FA Cup

The Eagles held Sunderland to a 0-0 draw, despite missing four first team players because of suspensions.

Tommy Black, Fan Zhiyi, Neil Ruddock and Jamie Smith were all banned for this FA Cup tie.

Both sides had good chances at the start of the game but Sunderland should have gone 1-0 up after 13 minutes, but Danny Dichio missed a Hutchinson cross from six yards.

Morrison had a good opportunity to open the score on six minutes, but his header went wide.

Sunderland started well in the second half, but Palace keeper Alex Kolinko kept his goal clean preventing Rae, Hutchison, Gavin McCann and Stefan Schwarz from scoring.

In the 57th minute, Hayden Mullins received a red card from referee Mike Riley for an angry reaction towards Sunderland's McCann.

Seconds later, Dougie Freedman could have headed Palace in front but his attempt was saved by Sunderland keeper Sorensen.

Eleven minutes from time, Sunderland were down to ten men when Varga got sent off for a professional foul on Freedman.

No goals were scored in the remaining time, so the two teams will meet again in a replay at Selhurst Park on Wednesday, January 17.

Post match comments

Alan Smith was disappointed at not getting two 'blatant' penalties. The Palace boss said: "I just thought they looked pretty blatant to me. But nothing surprises me since I've had this job. If I had a week without something happening, it wouldn't be the same.

"When you come back into the job, you want to do everything right, you want to be articulate and you don't want to start criticising referees.

"Then you start becoming as big a lunatic as everybody else."

Smith added: "But for us to have five key players out and still play like that with that young a team deserves a lot of credit. It's a good result for us.

"Coming up here without Ruddock, Fan in particular, Smith and Black, we knew it would be harder than normal, but we've come out of it with some credit, and without a few indifferent decisions, we might have got the win out of it."

Sunderland boss Peter Reid admitted his side was lucky not to concede a penalty.

He said: "They had a couple of penalty appeals and I got a clear view of the one on Thomas Sorensen and I thought it might have been one.

"They dug in and we had chances, but I don't think we played well or as well as we can play.

"Their keeper made saves and funnily enough, when their boy got sent off, we got worse and they got better.

"We tried to force it through the middle instead of trying to pass it and stretch them width-wise. They countered on the break and we weren't picking them up.

"All in all it was a disappointing performance, but we're still in the hat."

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