Sunderland 1 Aston Villa 3

Phillips leads old boys' net work at Sunderland

Sunderland are at least making history in this, their brief, season-long stay in the Premiership. This became their 17th top-flight home game without a win, an unenviable run which breaks a record set 92 years ago by Woolwich Arsenal. And, inevitably, they were sent on their way to the record by a man who used to set records here - Kevin Phillips.

Phillips (235 appearances for Sunderland) was Sunderland's leading post-war goal-scorer and he made up a triumvirate of returnees with Gavin McCann (124 appearances) and Thomas Sorensen (197). Their Wearside careers had been ruined by the wreckage of relegation in 2003 - when Sunderland set another unenviable record of the lowest Premiership points haul. But the 19 that they got then seems a frightening lot more than the five they have now.

"Those of us who find ourselves in the lower reaches of the League come Christmas will be hoping for a West Bromwich-esque escape, but we will have to play a whole lot better than that for us to turn it around and win as many points as they did in the second half of the season," Mick McCarthy, Sunderland's manager, said. "If there is a formula, we will find it. There's no question of me throwing the towel in."

Phillips began the rout when he comfortably steered home Aaron Hughes' cross in the 55th minute. Having scored 132 goals for Sunderland, his celebration of his first against them was compassionately muted, but soon a chorus of "Super Kev" rang out around the ground where he once received Europe's Golden Boot as Villa's fans cruelly reprised the Wearsiders' song.

Yet Villa came into the match in straits almost as dire as Sunderland's - three consecutive Premiership defeats playing four - and the first half was fought out by two teams struggling to find any fluency.

Villa, though, had dangerous darters - Milan Baros, James Milner and, of course, Phillips - who broke with cleverness and speed, particularly after half-time, when they came out determined not to squander possession.

Indeed, Phillips' goal was created by Baros' refusal to allow the ball to go out of play, but 10 minutes later the scorer pulled up clutching his hamstring. Limping, he was then clattered most cruelly by Alan Stubbs and departed a wounded man to generous applause.

His replacement, Luke Moore, proved another dangerous darter. A minute after his arrival, he was denied by Sunderland's 19-year-old keeper Ben Alnwick. Villa, though, kept coming back in waves. In the 82nd minute Milner's step-over undid the defence and his low cross was tapped home by Gareth Barry. A minute later, Moore sent Baros away for the third.

"When you play the teams below you it's good to draw away from them," Roy Aitken, Villa's assistant manager, said. "But we have felt all along we were in a false position."

For the second successive home match, Sunderland's crowd left well before the end, which meant they missed the soft 90th-minute penalty awarded when Jon Stead slipped. Although the stage was set for Sorensen to inflict more agony on his former employers, Dean Whitehead sent him the wrong way - but by then the 16-game record set by Woolwich Arsenal in 1912-13, and equalled by Nottingham Forest in 1998-99, was already broken.