Source: Telegraph
Sunderland were cheated says Danny Collins
The Sunderland centre-half, Danny Collins, last night claimed his club were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice and insisted his team had been cheated out of a momentous win at St James' Park.[LNB]Collins hit out after Djibril Cisse's first-half goal was cancelled out by Shola Ameobi's penalty, controversially awarded by referee Howard Webb after Steven Taylor tumbled under Steed Malbranque's challenge.[LNB]That ended Sunderland's hopes of celebrating their first League double over their arch-enemies since the 1966-67 season and ensured Collins boarded the team bus feeling badly wronged. Collins claimed that Newcastle midfielder Damien Duff had sympathised with Sunderland, having been booked minutes earlier when he went to ground too easily following Anton Ferdinand's penalty-box challenge.[LNB]'It was a terrible decision,' the Welsh centre-half protested. 'Steed sort of stumbled over himself, Stevie has gone on another yard and fell over.[LNB]'I said to the linesman afterwards 'How come you never flagged?' and he said he radioed it to the ref. I accepted it at the time because there's a lot of bodies there and I couldn't really see it. But I just saw it now on TV.[LNB]'Duff himself said 'It was a worse dive than mine'. He actually said that to me. Perhaps the fact that it was a few minutes after the Duff incident swayed him a little bit. The ref gave one or two things that were a bit soft in the second half.' [LNB]Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia diplomatically described it as a 'soft penalty' but his Newcastle counterpart Joe Kinnear insisted Webb was right to award the 69th-minute spot-kick that Ameobi converted impressively for his 50th goal in Newcastle colours.[LNB]It sent club owner Mike Ashley into raptures as he returned to St James' Park for the first time since the uproar created by Kevin Keegan's resignation last September.[LNB]'If you get tackled from behind it's obviously a penalty,' Kinnear said. 'I don't think Damien's was a penalty because I didn't see any contact, but most certainly Taylor's was.' [LNB]Sunderland seized the early initiative with the impressive Kieran Richardson grazing a post before Kenwyne Jones was denied by Kevin Nolan's goal-line block.[LNB]Newcastle striker Andy Carroll headed against the bar and then Cisse's cross-shot was tipped over by Steve Harper before he put Sunderland ahead on 32 minutes.[LNB]Cisse took advantage of woeful defending by Fabricio Coloccini, who vainly tried to play the Frenchman offside as Dean Whitehead lofted the ball forward and Cisse beat Harper at the second attempt.[LNB]Newcastle were there for the taking but the outstanding Sebastien Bassong held firm in defence and Sunderland lost momentum, ambition and purpose.[LNB]The former Newcastle striker Michael Chopra was denied a winner by Harper with the goalkeeper's defence at sixes and sevens and he fluffed another chance to enter local folklore as a villain. After beating Coloccini, Chopra opted to cross to Jones when he should have shot with just Harper to beat.[LNB]'In general, strikers tend to get greedy in there. I wish he had been and had a shot,' said Sbragia, who insisted he was content.[LNB]'We started really well and looked bright,' Sbragia added. 'Credit to Newcastle. Their midfield tightened up after half-time, they came at us and put us under severe pressure in the second half and maybe we were lucky to come away with a draw.[LNB]'Earlier in the season we might have folded but we were quite resilient and like everything else you need a bit of luck.' [LNB]Newcastle have now only managed to secure two points from their last six games and Kinnear is braced for a grim battle for survival.[LNB]'There are always two sides to every coin,' Kinnear said. 'I look at the big picture. I want to get 16 or 17 more points, forget about this season and start looking at next season. I want a different attitude, a different team.[LNB]'This has been a struggle from day one. We have been torn to shreds with turmoil, injuries – we have had the lot.' [LNB]Kinnear, whose side travel to West Brom on Saturday, added: 'Everyone else is in the same boat. There are three points up to 12th place. Everyone is looking over their shoulders. We are all looking ahead at the fixtures. We all have to play each other and we're all saying the same thing: 'It's must-win.' We have to play our football and put the other problems away.'[LNB][LNB]
