Habib Diarra and Chemsdine Talbi sat behind opposing dugouts during the acrimonious Africa Cup of Nations final last month, as Senegal defeated Morocco in Rabat.
While suspension deprived Diarra of his starting place for the victors, Morocco’s Talbi was an unused substitute. But, on a freezing Wearside night, they were reunited as Sunderland teammates and duly revelled in taking their frustrations out on Burnley.
Diarra had already created one goal and scored another by the time Talbi registered a spectacular third as Scott Parker’s side extended their winless run to 15 Premier League games. It left Burnley in 19th place, 11 points adrift of safety.
In ominous contrast to some recently spirited performances, the body language of Parker and his players seemed to spell surrender. The visitors’ former England defender Kyle Walker described Burnley’s display as “terrible”, saying: “It’s not acceptable. Sunderland wanted it more than us.”
His manager did not disagree. “We were just nowhere near it, really,” Parker said. “We looked like a childish team that had no intent. I didn’t see any purpose. We fell way short at the real basics. We were passive in every phase. We’re in a difficult moment.”
In contrast, Sunderland are up to eighth, virtually within touching distance of European qualification, but they had lost their previous game 3-1 at West Ham.
That disappointing defeat coincided with the rare absence of Granit Xhaka and, with an ankle injury once again sidelining Régis Le Bris’s inspirational captain, home fans wondered how they might respond here. The answer came swiftly and incisively.
After playing a deft one-two with Brian Brobbey, and leaving Maxime Estève looking thoroughly dizzy and disoriented, Diarra took aim. This is where a little luck intervened as his shot took a deflection off Axel Tuanzebe that succeeded in thoroughly wrongfooting Burnley’s former Newcastle goalkeeper, Martin Dubravka.
Although Diarra celebrated with a specially choreographed dance it was subsequently registered as an own goal.
Significantly Trai Hume had been involved in its preamble. Although the versatile Northern Ireland full-back had, unusually, struggled at West Ham, Le Bris kept faith in one of the few survivors of Sunderland’s promotion campaign last season. Accordingly Hume was handed Xhaka’s armband and a right-sided midfield role.
If that seemed impressive management, so, too, did the midfield fluidity and licence to improvise that led to Diarra and Noah Sadiki at times joining the similarly mobile Enzo Le Fée as No 10s operating behind Brobbey.
This tactic served to confuse Parker’s defence in a match that already involved Estève and friends being stretched to the limit in an attempt to contain Brobbey’s physicality. It is easy to appreciate why the former Ajax striker once came extremely close to joining Manchester United.
Not that Diarra is too shabby a finisher, either. By way of proving the point, a player who missed the first part of the season through injury finally scored a goal of his own before half-time.
It all began with a typically excellent pass from Le Fée. When the ball fell at Nordi Mukiele’s feet the right-back’s ensuing cross dropped for Diarra. No matter that his initial shot was blocked, he tried again, unleashing a strike that Dubravka touched but could not quite hold.
If the goalkeeper should have done better, Burnley’s failure to mount any sort of real resistance to Mukiele’s cross hardly helped their cause.
It also proved emblematic of a wider picture; quite simply Le Fée and co were infinitely sharper and slicker than the team they emerged with from the Championship last spring.
Burnley’s failure to properly test Robin Roefs, Le Bris’s goalkeeper, throughout only emphasised why Parker’s players appear so inexorably on course to return to the second tier.
The visiting manager switched from a back three to a back four at the start of the second half yet his problem was not formation based.
It was more that, an odd cameo from Marcus Edwards aside, Parker’s team offered negligible menace. Quite apart from lacking a player to destabilise Sunderland, their passing radar was alarmingly awry.
Although Dubravka saved smartly from Brobbey, his night only deteriorated when Talbi cut inside and curled Sunderland’s third goal beyond his reach from just outside the area. It was a superb finish but, all too typically, Burnley had made no attempt to close the Morocco winger down.
“We showed personality with the ball,” Le Bris said. “We needed to react to West Ham and scoring three goals was really important. We were not passive.”