Sunderland 2 Swansea 0: Black Cats on the move but homesick Gardner staying put

By Myles Hodgson Updated: 18:35 EST, 21 January 2012

Craig Gardner's hopes of engineering a move back to the Midlands suffered a major setback after his stunning second-half strike continued Sunderland's revival and underlined his value to manager Martin O'Neill.

Gardner is homesick following his £5million summer move from Birmingham but Sunderland have rejected a loan move to take him back to St Andrew's and O'Neill's determination to keep hold of him has only been strengthened by his outstanding cameo performance as substitute.

His 25-yard strike, chesting Stephane Sessegnon's pass down before launching a half-volley into the bottom corner, settled Sunderland's nerves after Swansea had threatened to cancel out Sessegnon's first-half opener with another classy display of passing football.

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'No one wants Craig to leave the club and I hope homesickness is something we can look at maybe in a month or two, or a year or two, or a decade or two,' said O'Neill, who now has six wins from nine matches since taking over.

'He's very family orientated and has never really been away from them before, but it is England and you can get from one place to another - it's not impossible these days.'

Until Gardner's late intervention, Sunderland were clinging on to Sessegnon's 14th-minute strike, when he hit a rising shot from the left-hand side of the box after exchanging passes with James McClean.

After that Swansea dominated and could have been on the scoresheet but for Scott Sinclair blazing over the bar after Danny Graham missed Nathan Dyer's low cross into the six-yard box. Despite their possession, though, Swansea struggled to carve out chances.

'The scoreline was very, very harsh,' claimed Swansea manager Brendon Rodgers. 'It was a disappointing result but the performance level was so high - I thought we were fantastic.'

Black Cats purring: Stephane Sessegnon (left) is congratulated after scoring the opener 

Rodgers was also diplomatic about a two-footed challenge from Sebastian Larsson on Scott Sinclair, which referee Chris Foy decided not to penalise.

He said: 'I didn't think it was dangerous but, in the modern game, you do see people sent off for that - and Chris Foy has sent players off for that.'

Flying: Sunderland's Kieran Richardson takes a tumble under pressure from Nathan Dyer (bottom)

Arms race: James McClean (right) vies for the ball with Swansea City's Angel Rangel

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