Leeds United had a bad night against Sunderland, but no catastrophe despite the many smokescreens — Yorkshire Post 4/3/26

By Stuart Rayner

Awful match, horrendous gamesmanship, poor refereeing, an inconsistent VAR, Leeds United's first back-to-back home defeats under Daniel Farke... for the second game running there were plenty of smokescreens but when it came to what the Whites could control, the issue was the same.

As defeats go, the 1-0 loss to Sunderland was pretty brutal, but "brutality" was what manager Daniel Farke felt his side were lacking.

Yes, if video assistant referee Paul Tierney had presumably not nipped out for a coffee when Luke O'Nien had Pascal Struijk by the neck and shoulders, hauling him to the ground in the penalty area, things could have been different.

Yes, if Sunderland had not reeled out a whole gallery of dark arts - and Stuart Attwell had not let them - to turn the game into one only its mother could love, momentum might - only might - have pushed Leeds to victory.

There were plenty of other people for Leeds to legitimately complain about but it rings pretty hollow when you do not do your own job.

At home to Manchester City on Saturday, poor finishing cost them.

Against Sunderland it was less about finishing, more about not creating enough chances.

Leeds had 70 per cent of the ball and did only slightly more than the square root of naff all with it.

Home punters did not need a Uefa Pro Licence to work out that with 22-year-old Swedish goalkeeper Elker Melborg making his debut for Sunderland, testing him out was the order of the day.

Anton Stach forced a good low save from a first-half free kick and when he whipped another in from wide, Joe Rodon headed in off the crossbar from an offside position to spark the VAR controversy.

A late Jaka Bijol effort deflected onto a post, but other than that, there was not a lot else against injury-hit opponents with an away record only marginally better than their own.

Sunderland were lucky to win given their only shot on target was a Habib Diarra penalty that Whites goalkeeper Karl Darlow got plenty behind but could not stop.

But were Leeds unlucky? Debatable.

Certainly it was not as simple as the answer Farke fired back when asked what went wrong: "The bloody result!"

What he went on to say acknowledged how facetious that was.

"We had nearly 20 shots, we had so many set-pieces, corner kicks, long throws, free-kicks," he noted. "We didn't give one chance away (apart from the penalty) but somehow we lost. Probably they are also struggling to explain how they won."

But he was not struggling to explain how Leeds did not.

"We have to add a bit more brutality from our key players in the offence, (be) a bit more comfortable to put the ball really into the net," he reflected.

"This is something we will address."

To do that they must "accept such a situation, because once you have a period when you somehow find it difficult to score a goal it's not like you score the next goal with an unbelievable, beautiful team goal like, for example, in our first game in Sunderland, with everyone involved,” he continued.

"It's more or less to accept, 'Okay, we have a period when we have to work the ball into the goal' - sometimes a 50-50, a duel where you are just a bit quicker in the head and just put the ball in with your chin and not think it has to look unbelievably beautiful."

Ugliness was certainly the order of the day in a period where, at Premier League level at least, the beautiful game has let itself go.

IFAB is looking at ways to speed up and tart up football but it needs stronger referees than Attwell and a solution to the ongoing issue of goalkeepers feigning injury to force timeouts, as Melborg appeared to.

Those, though, are for others, and Farke refused to wade in for fear of sounding bitter. He has work to do but also perspective to keep. Leeds had a bad night, not a catastrophe.

"We have shown really good performances and all the games at Premier League level are tight," he pointed out.

"Our lives would be easier if there were two more surprising points away at Aston Villa (a 1-1 draw), we were pretty close to and would have at least deserved a point against Man City (0-1) and normally, this game should performance-wise only have one winner.

"(Had those results happened) we would be pretty close to open the champagne already for staying in this league.

"But it's also my experience that to achieve your goals never comes easy, especially not for such a big club desperate to prove itself at the top level.

"We are still on a really good path, but to celebrate there is more needed and we need to dig in.

"But it's important not to lose the nerves just because they won a game of football where no one can explain how."