Wilson Isidor, Jobe Bellingham and the rest of Régis Le Bris’s vibrant young side are not about to give up on automatic promotion quite yet. This statement victory, secured thanks to Isidor’s fine winning goal, not merely preserved Sunderland’s unbeaten home record in the Championship this season but kept them fourth, only two points and one place behind a suddenly mortal-looking Sheffield United.
Three games without a win has left Chris Wilder’s team three points in arrears of the leaders, Leeds and trailing second-place Burnley on goal difference. Given that the round trip from Bramall Lane to the Stadium of Light is 260 miles by road, an 8pm kick-off on a public holiday coinciding with a wholesale public transport shutdown in the north-east was probably not the brightest of ideas.
Throw in the sort of wintry weather that turned afternoon rain to freezing evening sleet and it was small wonder that many Sheffield United supporters making the trek north from South Yorkshire cursed the television schedulers.
Not that those broadcast executives would care about live spectators struggling to de-ice frozen post-match car windscreens on a night that served up sufficient dramatic subplots to divert an armchair audience possibly disappointed by the absence of some leading lights.
With both sides suffering from a series of the sorts of injuries that tend to bite when the fixture list becomes heavily congested, Sheffield United arrived without, among others, their leading scorer Tyrese Campbell while Le Bris’s 17-year-old prodigy Chris Rigg remained in Sunderland’s treatment room.
No matter; the tension soon rose as the eagle-eyed referee, Matt Donohue, spotted Luke O’Nien’s vigorous tugging of Kieffer Moore’s shirt as a free-kick dropped into the area and he pointed, immediately, to the penalty spot. Moore though looked distinctly nervous and scuffed his kick too close to Anthony Patterson, who saved with his legs.
That 14th-minute reprieve seemed to galvanise an initially tentative Sunderland and when Jack Robinson made a mess of dealing with a clearance from Chris Mepham, the ball dropped into Eliezer Mayenda’s path and the forward found himself clean through with only Michael Cooper in front of him. Creditably Mayenda retained his composure and, poise personified, proceeded to beat the visiting goalkeeper courtesy of an exquisite left-foot shot.
The moment had arrived for Sheffield United’s Gus Hamer to emphasise precisely why he is such a coveted attacking midfielder and, sure enough, his low cross-shot was swiftly deflected into his own goal by O’Nien.
It is no secret that Le Bris is in the market for a new striker or two this month but, if Isidor keeps improving at this rate he might yet save Sunderland some money. As Sheffield United’s Sydie Peck forfeited possession in midfield the Zenit Saint Petersburg loanee sensed an opportunity and, after doing extremely well to dance around Anel Ahmedhodzic, Isidor duly whipped a low, angled, high-velocity shot past Cooper.
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It was his seventh goal of the season and left Wilder with much to ponder. With Adil Aouchiche and Mayenda having missed decent first-half chances, Sheffield United’s manager must have been concerned by the manner in which Le Bris’s tactics had succeeded in repeatedly leaving his central defenders, Ahmedhodzic and Robinson, isolated and vulnerable.
Yet if the Sunderland manager’s decision to turn his starting formation into much more of a 4-4-2 system seemed to be paying dividends, Le Bris must have been mindful of his side’s unfortunate penchant for conceding late goals.
That flaw saw the Wearsiders slip to a draw at Blackburn and a defeat at Stoke in the past week alone. And it meant that, despite Isidor’s counterattacking pace frequently petrifying Wilder’s defence and Bellingham once again belying his 19 years in central midfield, the Stadium of Light remained distinctly edgy.
Despite Bellingham directing a left-foot shot fractionally over the bar and the impressive Aouchiche regularly stretching Wilder’s team to the limit, Sunderland lived dangerously at times. Indeed as the clock ticked into stoppage time they wobbled visibly in the face of a visiting attacking blitz but, as a compelling Championship promotion race took another intriguing twist, they were not destined for crushing, late disappointment.
