Chelsea ex-player Gus Poyet meets former side with Sunderland

Sunderland: Forget the prospect of a League Cup quarter-final here against Gus Poyet’s one-time employers Chelsea next month, the really good news for Sunderland’s manager is that Wes Brown played a full 90 minutes.

Even better, the former England defender looked almost as good as new as Southampton paid the price for not taking a chance of silverware sufficiently seriously, surrendering tamely to goals from Phil Bardsley and Sebastian Larsson.

Mauricio Pochettino made 10 changes, fielding a very much second string Southampton side but Poyet proved somewhat more circumspect in his rotation.

While Brown finally fit again after appalling knee trouble started a game at the Stadium of Light for the first time since January 2012, Poyet only found room in Sunderland’s starting XI for five of the 14 summer signings secured by Roberto De Fanti, the club’s director of football.

Not that those selected by either manager exactly set the place alight. The slowest of low tempo first halves may have presented an encouragingly assured looking Brown with the ideal re-introduction to first team life but concluded with neither goalkeeper having to make a save.

Was the prospect of a quarter-final at home to Chelsea really that under-whelming? Poyet had played with Jozy Altidore as the lone striker and Ki Sung-yueng in for the suspended Lee Cattermole as the holding midfielder. The idea was presumably to help Sunderland’s players follow his advice to “take much better care of the ball” but it did not seem to be stretching such supremely well-organised opponents.

At least the 47th minute brought the first save of the evening, Kelvin Davis repelling Craig Gardner’s shot with his legs after Altidore’s adroit flick on.

Under 16,000 were there to see it. That’s an awfully low crowd at this 49,000-capacity arena but, after one Premier League win all season, Sunderland supporters’ overriding priority is seeing their side somehow avoid relegation.

Those that braved the Wearside rain and cold would have been heartened by Brown’s knack of passing smoothly out of defence along with a few promising central midfield cameos from the ever dependable Jack Colback. Appropriately both played key parts in the preamble to Bardsley’s goal.

Bardsley has hardly been a model professional in recent months but Paolo Di Canio’s former bete noire succeeded in eventually breaking the impasse.

The left-back for the night extended his right boot and bundled the ball over the line after Davis could not quite hold Altidore’s powerful header after Brown flicked on an Adam Johnson free-kick awarded for Jack Cork’s foul on Colback.

Next Larsson, on as a substitute for the injured Ondrej Celustka, connected with Altidore’s pass and swept a shot past Davis, right footed.

Not that it was quite a perfect night for Poyet as his side fell apart at yet another set-piece, conceding a late goal when, courtesy of Jos Hooiveld’s flick, Maya Yoshida headed James Ward-Prowse’s free-kick beyond the Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone.