It was all strangely familiar, but Sunderland fans will be hoping that their glorious deja-vu only stretches this far.

Paolo Di Canio famously won the Tyne-Wear derby after losing his first match in charge, and the Stadium of Light erupted yesterday as his successor, Gus Poyet, repeated the trick.

Despite the victory, the hosts remain four points adrift of 17th place - although they have ended a run of six successive defeats - but the Uruguayan manager hopes they can push on from here. "Look, I didn't like to see the table," he said. "When you are bottom, it's not nice. We are off the bottom - that's something; we beat the biggest rivals - that's even bigger. Now we need to keep going. We need to start passing the ball better, we need to keep believing and we need to do different things."

Borini, a 69th-minute replacement for Adam Johnson, won the game in thrilling style when he smashed an unstoppable shot past Tim Krul from Jozy Altidore's lay-off to finally kick-start Sunderland's season.

"This is what we needed so, from now on, there are no excuses." said Poyet. "We needed a lift and there is no better lift than this one, so I am happy for the players and absolutely delighted for the fans. I saw what it means all this week in town. I imagine how it is going to be this week - I don't know how much it matters being second from bottom, it's just about beating the rivals and everyone will have a nice week, I will tell you that."

Steve Bruce, the Hull City manager, was less satisfied after Tottenham were awarded a late penalty at White Hart Lane, lambasting the referee's call as "joke decision". The visitors had performed well in stifling Tottenham's threat for much of the game before Roberto Soldado converted the spot kick 10 minutes from. It came after Jan Vertonghen's cross was adjudged to have been handled by Ahmed Elmohamady.

"It is an absolute joke decision," Bruce said. "It hits his leg for a start and then goes up and hits his arm, how do you give a penalty in that situation?"

When asked if he had spoken to Oliver, Bruce replied: "After the game, but what difference does it make? He's ballsed it up. If my player made a decision like that I wouldn't be playing him and if I kept making decisions like that I would get the sack."

Michael Laudrup felt his Swansea City side were denied a clear penalty during their turgid 0-0 draw with West Ham United at the Liberty Stadium after Joe Cole appeared to handle it in the area. "I know I always say that a referee or a linesman only has one second," he said. "But I mean it is so clear when you have your arm up like that."