Daniel Farke has complained that Leeds were unfortunate to lose to Sunderland last night. And certainly there were three VAR calls which went against us, but maybe he should be asking himself whether he set the team up correctly for these particular opponents.

Farke said to LUTV is was “One of these cruel evenings of football. Sometimes, you have to take it. You are so dominant, you dominate the game, you create shot after shot, cross after cross, corner after corner. You don’t give one chance away but somehow the opponent is in the dressing room and wins this game 1-0 without really having a chance”.

“It is difficult to open them. This is why they have won so many points on this level. I think what was a bit missing in the first half was a bit more clarity in the final third. We should have been a bit more precise with the final pass, with the final corner kick, with the final cross. Also to anticipate it a bit more, like a bit more of the accountability in the final third.

“But sometimes the game of football is also like this, you can’t really explain, and the opponent can't explain how they have won this. This was one of the games.” Certainly Leeds were unlucky in this game, but should he have selected a more attack-minded line-up, to open up opponents who were always likely to sit in and frustrate us?

Our manager selected the same starting eleven as he did against Man City on Saturday, and went on to use the same five substitutes, in the same order. But the rather defensive set-up that has served him well in recent months against the better teams in the league (who are likely to come at us) proved to be less than ideal against a side who were content to sit back and soak up the pressure.

Calvert-Lewin was left isolated up front for long periods, and if we are to play with a 3-5-2 formation we should be able to have the luxury of fielding a proper second striker alongside him rather than Aaronson. And during the run-in, when a series of the division’s lesser teams come to Elland Road, we’re not going to need Gruev as a second defensive midfielder alongside Ampadu.

But of course most of the talk post-match has been about the three VAR decisions, or non-decisions. We will probably have to concede that the two actual interventions were correct, but it’s incredible that the referee wasn’t asked to have another look at the incident in the first half, when O’Nien had his arms around Stuijk’s neck and wrestled him to the floor.

The official explanation was that the VAR official thought it was not a ‘clear and obvious error’ by the referee. Which is incredible in itself, but it also seems to assume that the referee had seen the incident and decided it wasn’t a foul. It’s quite right that they decided to set a higher bar for VAR interventions, so a decision is challenged only when it’s obviously wrong, but what if the referee hadn’t seen it at all?

With all the grappling that goes on at corners, no referee can see everything at once. In that case it should be regarded as no decision having been made, so the ref should be asked to have a look at the incident he missed. If that had happened last night we would surely have had a penalty, and O’Nien may well have picked up a second yellow card. Rant over.

Otherwise the first half was largely forgettable. Our decent chances were limited to a free kick from Stach which Ellborg got down to turn round the post, and a moment when their reserve keeper wasn’t quite so impressive. His poor kick was picked up by Bogle, and was played back into the area, but Aaronson took too long to work the ball onto his right foot, giving three defenders time to get in the way of his shot.

In the second half some of our more attacking players began to come off the bench, but perhaps the most significant sub was Xhaka’s comeback for the visitors. It may not be a co-incidence that Sunderland’s dip in form coincided with his injury, and he was able to bring even more organisation to their defence as we tried to break them down.

We thought we had finally got ourselves in front when Rodon headed home from Stach’s inswinging free kick, but this time VAR did intervene, to let the ref know that the Welshman had started his run a little too early. And soon after, we had the decisive moment of the game at the other end.

The ball bounced onto Ampadu’s arm, and while he may have got away with the initial contact, what did for us was his second move towards the ball. As the ref looked at the VAR screen I was hoping that someone in the lower West Stand crowd could pull the plug out, but that’s probably not possible.

Diarra stepped up to take the penalty (yes, the one we wanted to sign in the summer when Sunderland outbid us) and showed us what we missed with a very poor penalty. I thought for a second Darlow had saved it and was just about to jump up, when I saw the ball bounce up into the net. Trouble was the kick was so badly placed he had dived past it, so it bounced off Darlow’s legs where he couldn’t get his hands down to complete the save.

As time began to run out we threw everything at them, and their defence was getting a bit stretched for the first time, now that we had Gnonto and James on the field. Calvert-Lewin was inches away from getting to a dangerous ball across the face of goal.

12 minutes were added on after all the Sunderland time-wasting, but with a combination of fine goalkeeping, having all their players back to get in the way and Piroe blasting a shot miles over, that wasn’t quite long enough.

And so a night when we were expecting three points to pull ourselves away from the bottom three ended with us thinking we might have a nervous end to the season after all. We will be nervously looking over our shoulders to see how the other relegation candidates fare tonight and tomorrow night.

We can but hope that this was just a blip, and that when the other middle to lower table teams come to Elland Road in the coming weeks we will be able to put them away.

Reuters