Daniel Farke shares ‘dangerous’ Sunderland verdict but insists Leeds United ‘deserved’ their win

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Sunderland succumbed to a last-minute defeat to Leeds United on Monday night, and Daniel Farke thinks it’s just reward for his team’s efforts.

The massive crunch match between two of the Championship’s best sides saw Leeds dominate almost entirely from start to finish.

However, Sunderland bagged the first goal of the game thanks to some brilliant work from Wilson Isidor, who continued his rich goalscoring form.

From then on, Leeds huffed and puffed and managed to find a breakthrough thanks to a Pascal Struijk header in the 78th minute. And it was that man who popped up at the death to finish off the game with another, as the Black Cats suffered heartbreak in the 96th minute.

• READ MORE: Sunderland player ratings vs Leeds United as 9/10 ace shines while three let Regis Le Bris down defensively

Daniel Farke always knew Leeds would grab a winner vs Sunderland

Discussing the battle after the game, Daniel Farke offered plenty of praise for Sunderland and the way his opposite number, Regis Le Bris, set up his team, but suggested the Leeds win was never in doubt.

He said: “I was convinced that we would have the chance to score and win the game. In the end, it was a tight game between two really good teams. They are a strong team who are really good at defending and really dangerous on the counter-attack.

“But in the end, there was no doubt that it was a deserved win. I think we had nearly 70 per cent possession, 21 shots to six and 11 corners to nine. But football is like this sometimes, out of one situation they score a goal.”

Indeed, Leeds ended the game with an xG of 1.96 to Sunderland’s 0.50, and had a massive 11 shots blocked. However, it’s interesting that the Black Cats actually had more shots on target (six to Leeds’ four).

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Sunderland set themselves up for defeat vs Leeds United

After the game, Sunderland fans voiced their dissatisfaction at Le Bris’ tactical approach, suggesting he made the wrong changes at the wrong time, and played things far too conservatively.

Sunderland certainly posed very little threat in the second half, and the idea of inviting pressure onto themselves against a team as dangerous as Leeds seems an absurd way to try to see out the win.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LeedsLeeds	33	21	9	3	68	20	48	72
2	Sheff UtdSheffield Utd	33	22	6	5	47	23	24	70
3	BurnleyBurnley	33	17	14	2	39	9	30	65
4	SunderlandSunderland	33	17	11	5	50	30	20	62
5	BlackburnBlackburn	33	15	6	12	39	31	8	51
6	West BromWest Brom	33	11	15	7	42	31	11	48

Bringing on Salis Abdul Samed, in particular, has drawn criticism. The defensive midfielder appeared to be pushed into more of a number 10 role after replacing Chris Rigg, and clearly it wasn’t a good fit for the Ghanaian.

Still, we did warn Le Bris that Samed was not the right man for the Leeds game. Perhaps he should have listened to us (and the thousands of Sunderland fans who felt the same).