Roefs and Trafford stand firm as Sunderland and Leeds battle for point

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 probably 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 this as a decent point on the road for his steadily improving Leeds, much now hinges on Sunderland’s visit to Coventry on Saturday.

The wind was strong and capricious enough to bend the corner flags out of shape, send pieces of rubbish swirling around the pitch and 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. These was the connection with the Enzo Le Fée cross and slightly deflected shot that prompted a decent save from James Trafford,

Then came 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 11th hour 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. The former Paris Saint-Germain defender required lengthy treatment as Le Bris looked on anxiously.

Eventually it became apparent a distressed Mukiele could not continue and the recently erratic Omar Alderete stepped off the bench.

By now a second best Leeds were renascent and it took important interceptions from Alderete and Le Fee to break the dangerous stride of Jayden Bogle and Ao Tanaka respectively.

Undeterred, Sunderland rallied. Nilson Angulo was in encouraging form on the left-wing and two shots from the Ecuadorian forced Trafford into a couple of smart saves.

Shortly after the hour mark the by now fading Brobbey was replaced by the inexperienced Ukrainian striker Timur Tutyerov but, at the same time, 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 Le Bris’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, the referee, disagreed and a video assistant referee check endorsed that viewpoint.

When the former Newcastle midfielder Sean Longstaff, on as a Leeds substitute, unleashed a dangerous low 20 yard shot, Stadium of Light regulars feared the worst but Roefs made a superb one-handed save to turn it around a post.