Crystal Palace vs Sunderland, match report: Sam Allardyce’s set-up frustrates Palace for Defoe to pinch win

Sam Allardyce's first return to London since leaving West Ham in the summer brought Sunderland a not undeserved victory thanks to a calamitous late error in the Crystal Palace defence. Jermain Defoe, due to be substituted shortly beforehand, took grateful advantage to give his team a first away win after taking one point from the previous six matches on the road and move them above Bournemouth in the bottom three.

After three defeats in his opening four matches as manager, leavened by a heartening if flattering derby win over Newcastle, Allardyce pulled off a tactical triumph in a scrappy, stop-start game constantly broken up by minor infringements.

For Palace, after taking four points from Manchester United and Liverpool that should have been a maximum six, it was a dispiriting performance on a night when a victory would have taken them into the top six.

A week away from December, no Palace striker has managed a league goal this season. Connor Wickham, scorer of only 15 in 91 Sunderland appearances and none at his new club, was on the pitch for an anonymous 75 minutes and substitutes Patrick Bamford and Marouane Chamakh fared no better.

Sunderland had reverted to the system of three central defenders that had collapsed ignominiously in a 6-2 defeat at Everton earlier this month and found it working considerably better. The personnel were different, with Younes Kaboul and John O'Shea now joining Sebastian Coates, while Billy Jones became one of the wing-backs with Patrick van Aanholt.

The main task facing the latter pair was to stop Palace's vibrant wide players, Yannick Bolasie (who scored a hat-trick at the Stadium of Light last season) and Wilfried Zaha.

Not surprisingly, Sunderland's formation often became five at the back, with the impressive Yann M'Vila just in front and Lee Cattermole never far away either. That frustrated Palace, who as Allardyce well knows are less good at taking on a massed defence than counter-attacking. To be fair to the visitors, the wing-backs stole forward when possible and one of the few chances at either end before half-time came when Jones supplied Van Aanholt for a shot into the side-netting.

Keeping two strikers high up the pitch also gave them attacking possibilities, as it had done at Everton. Early on Defoe headed a cross down for his partner Steven Fletcher to hit far too high and then Defoe, receiving from Cattermole, swivelled characteristically before shooting wide.

By the interval all Palace had managed was a pair of shots from Bolasie and James McArthur, that should have been recorded by the stats men as "straight at goalkeeper". Pardew, wanting far more than that, waited no longer to make a change, sacrificing Jason Puncheon to bring on Bakary Sako, who would last only 23 minutes before pulling a muscle. In that period the former Wolves man still produced Palace's best effort, fizzing a shot just past the far post, but only after a real scare for his side. Coates met Sebastian Larsson's corner with a header and Yohan Cabaye, sensibly positioned inside a post, had to kick it off the line.

Two substitutes, Duncan Watmore and Jeremaine Lens, then combined to give Wayne Hennessey his first save of the night but with ten minutes to play the Welsh international goalkeeper and his centre-half Scott Dann combined to lose the game. The normally reliable Dann tried to shield a through pass from Jones, then poked it in a panic wide of his onrushing goalkeeper and Defoe took full advantage the way he has done for years.

"The goal was a mistake but when the opposition make a mistake you need to capitalise on it," Allardyce said. "We frustrated the crowd, frustrated Crystal Palace, and it's a massive result for us. Our two clean sheets have brought us six points and it's the way to go."

A disappointed Pardew admitted that his team had been below par and "not created a great deal". He felt it was a compliment that a visiting side should adopt an essentially defensive formation, but Palace will have to get used to that as their reputation grows and teams realise it is the way to play against them.