Régis Le Bris can usually do impassive to perfection but, by the final whistle, even Sunderland’s ultra-balanced manager was looking more than a little fed up and frustrated.
His bottom-placed team had arguably just about deserved a second Premier League win of the season but, instead, had to settle for a draw on an afternoon when the hugely disruptive Storm Boelo proved the enemy of good football.
While Daniel Farke will doubtless regard his resilient side’s fifth league draw of the season as a fair return on the windblown road, much now hinges on Sunderland’s visit to Coventry on Saturday.
At least Le Bris’s side ended a run of four straight league defeats on a day when they could have done without meeting James Trafford’s goalkeeping excellence. “It’s so hard to win games,” said Sunderland’s manager. “But it’s a positive point; we played with intensity and togetherness. We were Sunderland today.
“It’s still a long journey but I think we’ve shown we’re embracing the challenge. We probably deserved more today. But there’s no drama, no panic.”
The wind was strong, and capricious enough, to bend the corner flags out of shape, send pieces of rubbish swirling around the pitch and turn passing calibration horribly awry but it would take a hurricane to throw Brian Brobbey off balance.
The good news for Sunderland was that their formidable centre-forward had recovered from a hamstring injury and seemed to be relishing the physicality of his duel with Jaka Bijol.
Along the way Brobbey had a couple of first-half chances. First came the connection with an Enzo Le Fée cross and the slightly deflected shot that prompted a decent save from Trafford.
Then there was the moment when Brobbey bullied Bijol into attempting a short back-pass before charging after it and getting there before Trafford. Hats off to Farke’s England goalkeeper for keeping his cool, bravely standing his ground and eventually saving cleverly with a leg.
Leeds possess a not-too shabby centre-forward of their own in Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He passed a late fitness test on a bruised foot and, although initially less involved than Brobbey, seemed on a mission to engage Luke O’Nien in a personal subplot.
It soon became clear that Calvert-Lewin had little enthusiasm for being marked by O’Nien’s central defensive partner, Nordi Mukiele, and duly manoeuvred himself into cameos against the former at every opportunity. Yet although O’Nien endured a couple of wobbles he also made a vital, quite possibly goal-preventing tackle on Calvert-Lewin as half-time beckoned.
The second half had barely begun before fortune frowned on Sunderland. An attempted clearance concluded with O’Nien throwing out an elbow and accidentally catching Mukiele in the throat. T he former Paris Saint-Germain defender requiring lengthy treatment as Le Bris looked on anxiously.
Eventually it became apparent a distressed Mukiele – who, Le Bris reported, fully recovered – could not continue and the recently erratic Omar Alderete stepped off the bench.
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By now, a generally second-best Leeds were renascent and it took important interceptions from Alderete and Le Fée to break the dangerous stride of Jayden Bogle and Ao Tanaka respectively. Undeterred, Sunderland rallied. Nilson Angulo was in encouraging form and two shots from the Ecuadorian forced Trafford into a couple of smart saves.
Shortly after the hour mark the fading Brobbey was replaced by the inexperienced Ukrainian striker Timur Tutyerov as, simultaneously, Farke introduced fresh attacking legs of his own.
They belonged to Noah Okafor and Anton Stach who filled the spaces behind Calvert-Lewin from where Harry Wilson and Brenden Aaronson had struggled to destabilise Sunderland’s backline.
The game remained in the balance. Trafford did well to somehow scramble the ball to safety as Granit Xhaka’s corner very nearly curved beyond him but Robin Roefs was required to dive at Calvert-Lewin’s feet after spilling Tanaka’s shot. Calvert-Lewin wanted a penalty but Stuart Attwell disagreed and a video assistant referee check endorsed that viewpoint.
When the former Newcastle midfeilder Sean Longstaff, on as a Leeds substitute, unleashed a dangerous low, 20-yard shot, Stadium of Light regulars feared the worst but Roefs proved equal to it, making a superb one-handed save to turn the ball around a post.
There was still time for Longstaff to have another shot cleared off the line but Farke remained sanguine. “I’m not complaining about the draw,” said the Leeds manager. “It’s always good to have a clean sheet. It’s fair to say that, in weather like this, it wasn’t the nicest game.”
Inevitably, Farke was invited to praise Trafford and his concession of a mere six league goals in eight games. “He chose a good team,” he said smiling before turning serious. “He delivers, he has the potential to be England’s No 1.”