Bruce hails Cats character

Steve Bruce felt the last-gasp winner which gave Sunderland a 1-0 victory over Manchester City was no less than they deserved.

Darren Bent converted a penalty in the fourth minute of stoppage time to give the Black Cats their first Premier League win of the season after City had dominated the first half.

Carlos Tevez missed an open goal for the visitors but Sunderland overcame the loss of Michael Turner and Fraizer Campbell to injury at half-time to produce a spirited second-half performance and bounce back from last week's dismal 1-0 defeat at West Brom.

Although the best chance fell to City substitute Emmanuel Adebayor, who was denied by a superb point-blank save by Simon Mignolet, Sunderland kept pouring forward and Bent was bundled over by Micah Richards at the death.

Late drama

Bent's successful spot-kick condemned the visitors to their first defeat this term but Bruce pointed out that the Black Cats have often been on the receiving end of late drama, like when City earned a 1-1 draw at the Stadium of Light last season thanks to a late strike by Adam Johnson.

"Sine I've been here, we've conceded a few in the last two minutes so we know what it feels like," he told Sky Sports.

"It's always nice when it happens for you and you get the winner.

"I think we've had some luck with the Tevez miss. I don't think he'll miss a chance like that again.

"But overall we've stuck at it, even when we lost two players at half-time through injury, and in the end we've got our reward.

"It baffles me when I see a performance like that after what I witnessed last week and that's something we've got to address."

Sunderland were wary of City's wide men having watched them torment Liverpool last week but the Black Cats managed to frustrate City's star-studded line-up.

"We had to go and match them in the middle of the park and we did that," Bruce said.

"We saw them against Liverpool and made sure we closed the wide players down.

Wide threat

"James Milner and Adam Johnson were magnificent against Liverpool so we had to get to them and try to stop them playing.

"But the good thing for me is that when we had it, we played a bit ourselves, in the second half in particular I thought we were the better team."

Bruce also hailed new keeper Mignolet, who has been in impressive form since having to come straight in for the injured Craig Gordon.

"We've had to throw him in at the deep end," added the Black Cats boss. "We've just brought him in, he's only 21 and he's got a bright future ahead of him.

"To go and produce the save that kept us in the game was terrific.

"He'll remember that and it'll do him the world of good."