Sir Alex Ferguson watched this game from the stands, though if he was hoping for something to take his mind off the Wayne Rooney situation he picked the wrong match. This encounter had 0-0 written all over it even before Christopher Samba was sent off at the end of the first half, and despite playing against 10 men for 45 minutes Sunderland appeared content with a sixth draw in eight games.

Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce apparently meet up on their holidays to get smashed on brandy, and when you see what they have to put up with during working hours it is not hard to understand why. They are both paid handsomely yet are still in dead‑end, mundane jobs.

It was easy to see what both teams were trying to do in a forgettable first half – Blackburn were attempting to make the most of set‑pieces while Sunderland were hoping to catch them on the break – yet equally clear that neither plan was proving as effective as it had probably sounded in training.

Simon Mignolet had little difficulty in dealing with Morten Gamst Pedersen's best effort from a free‑kick, and was more worried when Nikola Kalinic flashed a header just wide from El Hadji Diouf's cross in open play on the half‑hour.

Ahmed Elmohamady had the pace necessary to turn defence quickly into attack for Sunderland, he just lacked the vision and guile to find a final ball that would give Darren Bent or Danny Welbeck a chance of finishing. The latter produced an acrobatic volley that flew well wide from a rare Elmohamady cross that found a target, though by far the best opportunity of the first half was when a Gaël Givet mistake allowed Bent behind the Blackburn defence with all the time in the world and only Paul Robinson to beat. A goal looked certain yet all the fit-again England striker could manage was an unconvincing shot against the goalkeeper's legs.

He did better right at the end of the half, shooting narrowly wide from the scramble resulting from the free‑kick after Samba had been dismissed. The Rovers captain protested his innocence, but after consultation with an assistant, Lee Probert quite properly took the view that Samba had brought down Welbeck and had been the last defender. Samba had only himself to blame, after dozily conceding possession to the Sunderland player on the edge of his own area and over-hastily trying to correct his own mistake.

At least the incident enlivened the interval conversations. The game's only other highlight at that point had been Titus Bramble needlessly kicking a dead ball over the low-slung Riverside stand and out of the ground, just to see if he could.

Bent opened the second half by missing the target with a header from a much more promising Elmohamady cross. But with Phil Jones dropping back neatly into the space vacated by Samba the home side coped comfortably enough with what little Sunderland threw at them.

When Bruce made an attacking substitution by replacing Nedum Onuoha with Asamoah Gyan, Blackburn immediately made one of their own, though sending on Benjani Mwaruwari for Kalinic still only left Allardyce with one man providing nuisance value up front.

Still struggling for fitness, apparently, despite costing £12m three months ago. Gyan struggled to make an impact. Benjani sent a shot over 15 minutes from the end but the nearest the second half came to a goal was when Robinson was caught out of his area and Steed Malbranque attempted to chip into the empty net from 30 yards. He missed.