Wasteful Sunderland Star Cost Them Wembley Chance

Sunderland’s spectacular season got here to a disappointing finish on Tuesday night time as they fell 2-0 in opposition to Luton City within the playoff semi-final second leg.

Having gained 2-1 on the Stadium of Gentle final week, Tony Mowbray’s facet in a powerful place in opposition to the Hatters and would have been hoping to make it to Wembley, the place they’d have been one match away from securing back-to-back promotions.

What occurred in Luton vs Sunderland?

Sadly for the Black Cats, that dream would not develop into a actuality as the combination rating was levelled at 2-2 inside ten minutes as Gabriel Osho smashed residence from a nook.

Mowbray’s facet have been trailing on mixture earlier than half-time as centre-back Tom Lockyer headed in Alfie Doughty’s depraved supply, with accidents in defence leaving Sunderland uncovered within the air in opposition to a bodily dominant Luton facet.

It was at all times going to be robust for Sunderland on condition that the likes of Dennis Cirkin, Danny Batth and Ross Stewart have been all absent from the matchday squad.

This pressured Mowbray to play each Lynden Gooch and Patrick Roberts as full-backs at Kenilworth Highway, regardless of them being brief tough wingers, and this definitely backfired in opposition to Rob Edwards’ big Luton facet.

How did Roberts play in opposition to Luton?

As per Sofascore, the previous Manchester Metropolis man would earn a surprising 6.2/10 ranking for his efficiency, which was comfortably the worst of any participant to begin the sport from each side.

It’s maybe harsh to guage the 26-year-old given he was enjoying in an unfamiliar place, but it surely wasn’t simply his defending which let the Black Cats down on Tuesday night time.

Mowbray can have chosen Roberts on the best within the hope that he may assault and hyperlink up with Amad Diallo, so it was maybe no shock that the slight winger struggled in opposition to Doughty down the left, as he was dribbled previous 3 times and gained simply eight of 26 duels through the 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, his efficiency going ahead was an actual letdown and arguably a significant component in Sunderland’s failure to search out the aim which may have taken the sport to further time or taken the north-east membership to Wembley.

The English winger misplaced the ball on a exceptional 23 events in opposition to Luton, as simply certainly one of his 5 crosses and none of his three lengthy balls discovered a teammate.

Roberts is definitely recognized for his dribbling capability however tried to do it far too usually at Kenilworth Highway, succeeding with simply 4 of his 12 makes an attempt on the night time, though he did practically rating a surprise aim after beating quite a lot of Luton defenders on a mazy run.

With Sunderland struggling to create probabilities late on, the right-winger engineered the area for 3 photographs however put each single one astray, when a cross would have maybe been the higher choice.

His greediness was disappointing on an evening when Sunderland wanted to be at their finest as a workforce to get by means of, and his underwhelming efficiency was little doubt one main issue within the 2-0 defeat.