Sunderland            0 ​

Leeds United         0 

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25th October 2026. English Premier League.

46,182.

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A few days ahead of this game, it looked like one there to be won, but, in hindsight, and knowing we were three players down from our regular starting XI and in difficult, windy conditions against a team that is better than its league position suggests, maybe it is better classified as one not to lose after all.

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Having said that, it was a strangely sluggish first half from Leeds, with James Trafford taking an age to try to coax the Sunderland press towards him before letting go of the ball, which made for a very stop-start sort of a game. Leeds failed to get a shot on target before the break, while a couple of examples of questionable defending from Leeds, with Jaka Bijol often the culprit, allowed the ever-dangerous Brian Brobbey to test James Trafford. He dealt well enough with those though- a low shot from the edge of the box that was heading for the left corner of the net, and a run through the heart of the Leeds area after a poor pass from Harry Wilson put Bijol under unnecessary pressure; Trafford was out quickly to block that one with his legs.

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The first half showed once again that, for the time being at least, we have eleven players that make a top-class team, and only eleven! Once we are forced to stray from that, we start to look only average at best. We can forgive the jittery start from Jaka Bijol, as he quickly got into his stride, but not for the first time, the inclusion of Harry Wilson and Brenden Aaronson just didn’t work for us at all. There were a few good touches from Harry early on, and his set-piece deliveries were okay, but he’s not the driving force I expected to see when we signed him. As for Brenden, it was another mostly anonymous performance apart from his involvement in a nice move early in the second half when he combined well with Wilson and Bogle to set up an overhead effort by the little American, but his execution was poor, and as usual he was brushed off the ball on the few occasions he got on it.

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I thought it was a poor game for Jayden Bogle and James Justin down the Leeds right too; too often, promising moves down that flank came to nothing while Gabi Gudmundsson was brighter on the left going forwards and back at least early in the game.

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Leeds got better as the second half went on, and but for the lack of a bit of luck, we might have nicked it at the end with a couple of efforts from Sean Longstaff and a decent shout for a penalty as O’Nien barged over DCL as he challenged for the ball with the home keeper. I guess we were never likely to get anything from another dire referee - Mr Attwell, whose decisions were at best random if not totally baffling on occasions. Before then, there were half chances for Ao Tanaka and the Brenden Aaronson effort, while at the other end, James Trafford was needed to keep out a couple of efforts from Angulo. Sunderland went into panic mode in a frantic last ten minutes and, had the game lasted another ten minutes, I think we’d have grabbed a winner as that midweek trip to Poland probably started to tell on the legs of the home side.

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So, under the circumstances we found ourselves in, losing those three regular starters, I put this down as another decent point on the road that will look even better once Sunderland start to climb the table, as they surely will; they look a useful side to me, and it will be interesting to see how their season progresses. The match stats were pretty even and suggested that neither side deserved any more than a point.

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However, these points on the road will only look decent if we can follow them up with some regular wins on home soil when the likes of Coventry, Ipswich and Fulham come to ER in the next couple of months; those are the games that most definitely will be down as ‘must-win’ games. It is also looking increasingly obvious that at least one decent signing will be needed to boost this group in the January transfer window; someone capable of changing and unlocking a game like today’s.