Sunderland v Leeds United 12th December 2023 at The Stadium of Light please log in to view this image To be honest, I was quite surprised to see many fans had already written us off before the game. I know I take no notice of other teams but maybe I should. I do see what happens on the pitch though and that’s how I make my judgements. We lost by a solitary goal when they got the luck needed to score late on in the game. It had been looking like a goalless draw was on the cards which would have been fine as far as I was concerned but sadly wasn’t to be. Sunderland literally parked the bus which made it hard for us to get through their defence. I do think we should have changed things a lot sooner by bringing our subs on earlier, but we will never know how effective that might have been now. Team: Meslier, Struijk, James, Rodon, Summerville, Piroe, Spence (Byram injured), Rutter, Kamara, Gray, Ampadu. Subs: Anthony for James (75), Gnonto for Rutter (75), Bamford for Spence (82), Joseph for Kamara (82). Subs not used: Darlow, Cooper, Ayling, Gruev, Gelhardt. Leeds lost the game 1-0. Attendance: 40,531 with 2,000 Leeds fans. Referee: D Whitestone. Booked: Gray, James. I’d waited outside the ground to meet someone so by the time I got into the ground, Leeds had already won a free kick. Summerville who had been fouled took the free kick and was denied a goal by their keeper. The game was very fast paced, and the Leeds fans were getting irate at the number of fouls on some of our players that saw Sunderland go unpunished. The view was terrible in the upper stand behind the goal where the Leeds away supporters were as it is too far away from the play for me. It looked as if Sunderland had taken the lead only for the ball to be kicked off the line and away. Meslier produced a fantastic save to keep Sunderland out from the resulting corner. It was obvious to me that Sunderland were determined to get something out of the game as they were no pushover. I’d been told they’d recently sacked their manager so maybe that had something to do with it. With scores level at halftime, I went downstairs to where the refreshment area was. The layout of the stand isn’t good as it was hard to find your way out of it plus it was very damp which made the floor slippy. After hearing one of my friends had been taken to First Aid, it was good to hear that all had turned out well after the game. Both keepers made saves at the start of the second half. With end-to-end football, we were struggling to get through their defence, but our best chance fell to Summerville who shrugged them off. He just couldn’t beat their keeper though. Sunderland kept attacking and we felt our subs should have come on a lot earlier to take the sting out of the game and slow it down. Sunderland then took the lead with a fast attack. The ball was headed out of defence but headed back in before falling into the path of their second player who had kept running. It did look offside but looking at replays, I think he was just onside. Piroe had a shot kicked off the line in the dying minutes, but you just knew we weren’t going to get anything out of the game. The curse of the Manager of the Month strikes again but we had to be beaten some time. No game is ever going to be easy and although we didn’t give up, we struggled to get past that defence. With two home games against Coventry and Ipswich before Christmas, then two away games at Preston and WBA, we start the New Year with another home game against Birmingham. We will have a better idea then of how we cope with the challenges of such a lot of games in a short period of time. Getting as many points as we can has to be the aim and a bonus will be playing good football to get them. See you Saturday – LUFC – Marching on Together! please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
