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The news that a national poetry centre is to be established in Leeds proved the source of considerable pride in West Yorkshire on Monday.
By 10pm on a bitterly cold night at Elland Road any notions that Leeds United would capture the mood courtesy of a suitably cadenced performance had been thoroughly disabused as Daniel Farke’s side scrapped their way to a dramatic last-gasp win after Wilson Isidor had given Sunderland the lead.
Yet if it was hardly poetic as substitute Pascal Struijk’s two goals helped return Leeds to the top of the Championship, two points ahead of Sheffield United, seven points clear of third-placed Burnley and 10 in front of Régis Le Bris’s side.
When Illan Meslier made a bizarre error and gifted Sunderland the late equaliser that secured Le Bris’s team a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light in October, some Elland Road regulars predicted that Farke would soon lose patience with his goalkeeper.
Instead the Leeds manager kept the faith and Meslier repaid him with 15 clean sheets in 23 games following that autumn night on Wearside. The home keeper was swiftly called to arms here when Enzo Le Fée did well to keep the ball in play before accelerating down the left and squaring for the unmarked Jobe Bellingham to test the Frenchman’s reflexes with a low shot perhaps lacking a little power. When that effort was parried the rebound fell to Patrick Roberts but, once again, Meslier proved equal to the challenge.
Nonetheless Le Fée – incidentally a former school friend of Meslier’s in Brittany and fellow product of the Lorient academy once run by Le Bris – had served notice of the talent that once prompted the loanee’s parent club Roma to pay Rennes £20m for his services.
Leeds paid Fortuna Düsseldorf a rather more modest £2.9m for the Japan midfielder Ao Tanaka last summer but he has turned into quite a bargain and emphasised the point courtesy of some important interceptions.
Yet if Tanaka invariably had something to do with Leeds’s increasing dominance of an oscillating first half, Le Bris’s defence generally succeeded in protecting their goalkeeper Anthony Patterson while frustrating the lively Dan James and co.
Sunderland simply kept their cool, weaved Le Bris’s beloved passing triangles whenever they regained possession and waited for an opening. It eventually arrived thanks to a long ball from Dan Ballard diligently chased down by the increasingly ruthless Wilson Isidor, who expertly turned the out-muscled Ethan Ampadu before directing a fabulous angled shot into the net via the inside of both uprights.
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The former Zenit St Petersburg striker had a lot to do after springing the Leeds offside trap but Isidor’s 12th goal of the season suggested the Frenchman would not be out of place in the Premier League.
Farke’s team are not accustomed to trailing at Elland Road in the Championship and, as Sunderland fans serenaded them with a few renditions of “Leeds are falling apart again”, turned decidedly tetchy. Jayden Bogle’s booking for a frustrated tackle on Bellingham following the midfielder’s connection with Le Fée’s gorgeous flick encapsulated the mood.
Light snow had fallen in the north-east and West Yorkshire felt almost as freezing, but out on the pitch the heat was rising. Farke’s players were clearly unhappy at their guests’ audacity in breaking Meslier’s run of six clean sheets in the second tier but frequently found themselves too heavily occupied in preventing Le Fée, Chris Rigg and friends from cueing up Isidor again to properly fathom out how to exert revenge.
The increasingly impressive Manor Solomon did his best but although Solomon dazzled at times as Sunderland withstood a barrage of home pressure, Leeds created precious few clearcut chances until two of Farke’s substitutes combined to equalise when Struijk’s powerful header following Joe Rothwell’s free-kick finally defied Patterson.
