WHAT do Sunderland and Manchester City have in common? They are now the last two sides to have prevented Burnley from scoring at Turf Moor. Thanks to their superb defensive efforts last night, the Black Cats find themselves in good company.

It was last April when City recorded their shutout in the Premier League, meaning Sunderland are the only club to have prevented Burnley from finding the net in a home game throughout the course of their seemingly unstoppable surge to the Championship title.

The Black Cats’ defensive efforts were all the more commendable given they were achieved without arguably their best centre-half (Dan Ballard), left-back (Aji Alese) and defensive midfielder (Corry Evans), with Luke O’Nien performing superbly alongside Danny Batth at the heart of the back four and both Lynden Gooch and Trai Hume excelling in their full-back roles to neuter the threat of Burnley’s talented wingers.

Anthony Patterson weighed in with a couple of decent saves, but it was Sunderland who came closest to claiming a winner, with Amad Diallo’s deflected second-half strike looping against the crossbar. With Jack Clarke also having a late effort chalked off because Abdoullah Ba had strayed offside, the Black Cats more than merited their point.

Burnley’s ability to dominate possession was apparent throughout, but thanks to some organised and disciplined defending, it did not result in a flurry of chances.

O’Nien and Batth made a decent fist of dealing with the dangerous Nathan Tella, while Pierre Ekwah covered plenty of ground alongside Dan Neil at the heart of midfield as he made his first Sunderland start.

Ekwah came the closest to scoring for either side during a largely chance-free opening quarter, although in truth, his scuffed effort from 20 yards after Clarke’s cross was nodded into his path was not really much of an opportunity.

It was more than Burnley had mustered, and was followed by a low Patrick Roberts effort that Arijanet Muric turned around the post, but it took two excellent pieces of Sunderland defending to prevent the league leaders from opening the scoring shortly before the half-hour mark.

First, the recalled Gooch shuffled across from left-back to produce a perfectly-timed sliding challenge that prevented Manuel Benson from getting a shot away. Then, from the resultant corner, Patterson stuck out a hand to parry Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ strike after a scramble in the box ended with the ball dropping at the centre-half’s feet.

It said much for the strength of Sunderland’s performance that that was the only save Patterson had to make before the interval, although he should really have been tested five minutes before the break when Josh Brownhill hooked the ball into Ashley Barnes’ path inside the 18-yard box. The veteran striker seemingly had the goal at his mercy, but curled a wasteful effort over the top.

With Gooch producing another superb last-ditch intervention to deflect Brownhill’s shot over the top, Sunderland reached the interval on level terms, and the second half largely followed a similar pattern to the first, with Burnley spending a lot of time on the ball without being able to penetrate the Black Cats’ well-drilled backline.

Anass Zaroury should probably have done better when he blazed wide at the back post after Brownhill slid a low ball across the face of the six-yard box, but from Joe Gelhardt at the front, who snapped around to prevent Burnley from being able to build from the back, to Batth and O’Nien, who flung their bodies in the way of everything that was thrown at them in their centre-half positions, Sunderland’s players strained every sinew to keep their clean sheet intact.

Indeed, come the 69th minute, and the visitors came within inches of claiming the lead. Tony Mowbray threw on Edouard Michut and Amad in an attempt to fashion a breakthrough, and the latter could not have come much closer to delivering.

Receiving a square pass from Roberts, the Manchester United loanee fired in a 20-yard strike that deflected off a sliding Josh Cullen before looping against the crossbar, with the ball rebounding back into the hands of a grateful Muric.