Bruce praise for match-winner Bent

16 August 2009 10:24
The £10million signing from Tottenham superbly dispatched Steed Malbranque's cross in the fifth minute to give Bruce a winning start to his reign. Bent, 25, recently made the headlines for the wrong reasons after he used the social networking site Twitter to publicly criticise Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy at what he saw as the lack of progress over his transfer to Black Cats. Eventually granted his move to Wearside, the England international looked well and truly at home in the red and white of Sunderland. Dovetailing effectively with Kenwyne Jones throughout, Bent's pace was a constant threat to the Bolton backline and he was unlucky not to add to his tally. Bruce said: "It's great when your centre-forward gets off the mark after five minutes. "It was a great header and all that hard work that the chairman (Niall Quinn) has put in, with hours of negotiations by everybody concerned, has paid off. "It was well worth it, not just for his goal but his appetite and his work-rate. "That's what got the deal over the line in the end - the boy's desire to come and play for us." With new recruits Lee Cattermole and Lorik Cana also making impressive debuts in midfield, Sunderland totally dominated the first half and could conceivably been at least 3-0 up at the break. Bruce added: "You all know what I think of Cattermole. "He gave an outstanding performance, especially in the first half. "He's only been here three days but you'd think he's been three years with the way he played. "He's an outstanding talent and I'm delighted we've been able to get him. "I'm absolutely delighted with the win but we made hard work of it in the end because we should have been out of sight. "I knew we had to get the second because they could have scored right at the death, but overall I'm very pleased." Jussi Jaaskelainen denied both Bent and Kieran Richardson and other opportunities came and were spurned. Yet Sunderland's 5,500-strong army of travelling supporters headed back to Wearside confident that fights with relegation are a thing of the past. The Black Cats finished fifth bottom last season with a pitiful points tally of 36 after a miserable campaign. The appointment of Bruce, and the significant funds he has subsequently spent, has encouraged hopes that Sunderland can push for a top-10 finish this season. Bruce, who reported injuries to Steed Malbranque (ankle) and Richardson (dead leg), added: "It's a good start but that's all it is. "The big thing for me was the supporters in times of recession. We brought 5,500 and that was wonderful to see." Sunderland were certainly too good for Bolton, who were toothless in attack for long periods. Sam Ricketts, Paul Robinson, Zat Knight and Sean Davis all made their debuts for the Trotters following their arrivals from Hull, West Brom, Aston Villa and Portsmouth respectively. Yet the Trotters could not find a way through Sunderland's defence, despite a spirited rally in the second half. Sunderland were indebted to a superb reflex save by Marton Fulop in the closing stages to deny Cary Cahill but Trotters boss Gary Megson was left to rue his side's awful start to the game. Megson said: "In the second half we were on the front foot and much more committed. "If we'd done that in the first half we would probably have got a better result, I would think. "We were sluggish and the biggest disappointment was that we spoke on Thursday about set-pieces and how important they are at every level in football. "We scored 14 goals from set-pieces last year, which was nearly a third of the amount of goals we scored, and we defended 74 wide free-kicks and didn't concede a goal. "We've done that within five minutes today. It was a great header and leap from Bent, but our defending was nowhere near what I'd expect in such a critical area."

Source: Team_Talk