O´Neill thrilled with debut win

New Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill said it was ‘surreal’ to see his team beat Blackburn 2-1 thanks to an injury-time goal on Sunday.

Sunderland were trailing at home to fellow strugglers Blackburn after Simon Vukcevic headed the visitors in front 16 minutes into O’Neill’s first match in charge.

But the hosts piled on the pressure in the second half at the Stadium of Light.

First David Vaughan equalised with seven minutes to go, and then Sebastian Larsson scored from a free-kick to win the match two minutes into injury time.

“It was surreal, really surreal,” O’Neill said.

“Just to get three points on the board is immense.”

“I would have given a lot for that, just to have won the game, but mainly – forget about myself – just for the players.”

“It’s only a win, it only gives us a win. We have a million miles to go, but in terms of restoration of confidence, it was great.”

“Even in my wildest dreams, I never thought about those. David Vaughan’s equalising goal was just brilliant.”

Blackburn manager Steve Kean said he was left ‘absolutely gutted’ by his team’s dramatic defeat.

“It’s tough because we looked at the clock with seven minutes to go … we’re thinking we’ve done enough defensively and to be sitting here with no points we’re absolutely gutted,” he said.

“They way we defended considering the amount of changes we had to make, it was tough at the end just getting bodies on the pitch, people playing out of position. I felt the lads battled away and deserved something from the game.”

Larsson’s winner came after Mauro Formica was penalised for a handball.

Kean felt it was a harsh decision, especially given the way Blackburn had a second goal ruled out for a questionable foul on Sunderland keeper Keiren Westwood in the first half.

“We felt that it hit Formica under the arm,” Kean said.

“He’s made a jump and feels its hit him underneath as opposed to him swinging his arm at the ball.”

“That (call) goes against us and Larsson whips in a fantastic free-kick but sometimes you don’t get those decisions. I don’t think it was an intentional handball.”

“On top of that we feel as though the second goal, when Morten (Gamst Pedersen) delivers a great flat free-kick to Chris Samba who gets a flick on it, I don’t see how that can be a foul.”