Huddersfield Town 0-2 Sunderland: Alex Pritchard & Amad Diallo give Black Cats win
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Alex Pritchard spent three and a half years at Huddersfield before joining Sunderland in July 2021
Alex Pritchard's first goal of the season and an injury-time strike from Amad Diallo earned Sunderland victory at Huddersfield in the first league meeting between the sides since 1999.
Flowing football was very difficult in hideous weather but Pritchard's close-range finish shortly after half-time put the Black Cats ahead before on-loan Manchester United winger Diallo sealed the points.
It was just a second win for Sunderland in their past eight matches as they rose to 14th in the Championship.
Huddersfield remain bottom after a 10th defeat of the season as they failed to build on Saturday's victory against Millwall.
They were undone by one of the rare slick moves of the match as Diallo and Patrick Roberts linked up well on the right side of the area and Roberts slid over a low cross for Pritchard to turn home.
Prtichard was returning to his former club and celebrated by putting his fingers in his ears, having not entirely been given a warm welcome by the home supporters.
Sunderland could easily have fallen behind moments before their goal as Etienne Camara played Duane Holmes through on goal, but Black Cats goalkeeper Anthony Patterson made an excellent block.
The rebound found its way to Jordan Rhodes but he shot over from eight yards out.
Brahima Diarra came closest to an equaliser for the home side with a drive through midfield but he shot wide of the right-hand post.
And as Huddersfield threw everything forward in the final stages, Sunderland caught them on the break.
Diallo played a one-two with Ellis Simms to beat the final defender before a low finish past Huddersfield goalkeeper Lee Nicholls.
Huddersfield's night was made worse with centre-half Yuta Nakayama and left-back Ben Jackson stretchered off towards the end of the first and second halves respectively.
Huddersfield head coach Mark Fotheringham told BBC Radio Leeds:
"I'm disappointed with the result but I can't fault my players' commitment and effort.
"I think you can all see that we had many chances and could have had two or three goals.
"We have to handle those situations better but it's given me a lot of positivity heading into the weekend's game."
Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray told BBC Radio Newcastle:
"It's probably the worst performance since I've been here, I didn't think we could play as poorly as that.
"We played like the weather - it wasn't very good at all - but it's great to have three points in the bag and know we are so much better than what we showed tonight.
"We'll put the points on the board and find a way to get back to the fluency that we normally have."