Portsmouth 1-3 Sunderland: Eliezer Mayenda and Romaine Mundle score as Black Cats stay perfect

Romaine Mundle made sure Sunderland continued their perfect start to the Sky Bet Championship season by grabbing the third in a 3-1 win over Portsmouth.

The Black Cats have a 100 per cent record and, despite conceding for the first time in almost seven hours in stoppage time, they purred to victory on the south coast.

Zak Swanson's calamitous own goal, Alan Browne's close-range effort and Mundle's fine end to a counter attack continued Sunderland's best start to a season for 99 years - where they also began with a quartet of victories.

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Pompey had more of the ball in the early stages but only had a single first-half shot on target to shout about - a tame header from Connor Ogilvie in the 12th minute.

The visitors grew but overhit crosses and a horribly sliced effort from Patrick Roberts were all they could muster until the 31st minute, when the only moment of quality of the first half arrived.

Trai Hume brilliantly found space down the right side of the box and pulled it back to Eliezer Mayenda in the centre. His shot was kept out by Will Norris before a catastrophe between Jordan Williams and Swanson broke the deadlock.

Makeshift centre-back Williams attempted to hack the ball clear but only kicked into Swanson's midriff two yards away, with both helpless to stop the ball crossing the line.

After the break, the Black Cats tore away with just their second victory at Fratton Park in their last 10 trips to the south coast.

There was a scrappiness to the second as Roberts got in down the right. The winger pulled back to Mayenda, whose first touch was poor but his second poked slowly towards the line, which Browne made sure it crossed.

If Mayenda's influence was sketchy with the second goal, he played a much more assured role in the third as he led a counter down the middle.

He played a perfectly weighted pass to his left to Mundle, who collected, settled and stroked home his second goal of the campaign to send the 2,081 away fans wild.

Sunderland's 389-minute run without conceding this season was finally ended when Swanson's nod across goal was needlessly headed into his own goal by Luke O'Nien.

It could mot prevent John Mousinho from tasting defeat for just the 11th time as Portsmouth boss, and first of the league season after three straight draws.

The managers

Portsmouth's John Mousinho:

"It is disappointing to lose the game and Sunderland thoroughly deserved to win it. There were a lot of small moments in the game, not just the goals, and they add up and in the end show there is a big gulf between the two sides.

"It isn't something we can't bridge at some point, but we have to be a lot better than that.

"They were very ruthless, although strangely I think we have conceded more chances in the two away games where we weren't punished. Maybe today was coming a bit.

"Sunderland put their chances away and then were comfortable after that.

"One of the other differences between the two sides is those small moments where we are faced with defenders and we have the opportunity to get the ball in the box - we didn't have enough quality.

"We didn't create enough to win the game, but I am less disappointed about that than about the defending, because I think we need to make better decisions going forward with out defensive play."

Sunderland's Regis Le Bris:

"It is a balance between confidence and the consistency that we need to keep to create the conditions to win.

"I'm sure that they will remember last season. That was very important for them because they experienced many bad and good situations.

"Now they know that if we aren't consistent as a team, if we don't attack together or are selfish, we will lose.

"The balance at the moment is OK but we need to stay very consistent.

"The key point for us today was that we used the experience of the first half to know what we could change and those small details changed the game."

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