Sunderland: Gaston Ramirez scored one goal and made another as Hull City escaped the Premier League relegation zone by coming from behind to win 3-1 at Sunderland on Friday.
Adam Johnson had put Newcastle United to the sword with a last-minute winner last weekend and he gave Sunderland the edge against another of their north-east rivals with a first-minute opener at the Stadium of Light.
But on-loan Uruguayan playmaker Ramirez equalised with a speculative 32nd-minute shot and then crossed for James Chester to head Hull in front before substitute Nikica Jelavic added a third in stoppage time.
It gave Hull manager Steve Bruce a much-needed victory over his former club, after a run of 10 games without a win that had seen last season’s beaten FA Cup finalists slide into the drop zone.
Gus Poyet’s Sunderland remain 14th, four points above the bottom three.
While Poyet made two changes, bringing in Billy Jones for Wes Brown and Ricardo Alvarez for the suspended Connor Wickham, Bruce shuffled his pack.
In came five new faces, with Curtis Davies, Liam Rosenior, Stephen Quinn, Robbie Brady and Sone Aluko coming replacing Andy Robertson, the suspended Jake Livermore, Abel Hernandez and Jelavic.
It seemed to little avail as Johnson struck after only 30 seconds, intercepting Davies’s under-hit back-pass and rounding Allan McGregor before walking the ball over the line.
But Ramirez equalised 13 minutes before half-time, taking aim from 25 yards with a shot that skipped off a bobble and left Sunderland goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon clutching thin air.
Sunderland had a succession of strong penalty appeals waved away by Andre Marriner before half-time, with Alex Bruce and then Quinn appearing to handle the ball inside the Hull box.
And six minutes into the second half, Hull completed the turnaround when Chester met Ramirez’s corner with a powerful near-post header.
With Sunderland pushing forward, Jelavic killed the game off in the sixth minute of injury time, dropping his shoulder and drilling a low shot past Pantilimon.
