MD10: Sheffield United 0-1 Sunderland
Missed chances cost the Blades as Sunderland land a late sucker punch
A familiar tale this week as for the third straight home game United competed well against a good team but ultimately lost to a late goal. All three games have followed the same pattern: United play well for 70 minutes or so, run out of legs and don’t have enough on the bench to offset it, concede, and lose. This time Sunderland were the beneficiaries, with Eleanor Dale’s 85th-minute goal giving the Black Cats the points.
It’s immensely frustrating (I’m sure the players would agree!): the club reaping what it sowed in the summer. To be clear I think United did a decent job with the players they brought in – Maria Farrugia is a star, and several others have really impressed – but there just isn’t enough of them.
When injuries bite – and this week the Blades were without Ellen Molloy and Abbie Lafayette – there’s only really youngsters to turn to. So while Sunderland are able to make three changes to try and win the game, United have to ask the bulk of the starting eleven to bang out 90 minutes every week. Only one sub was made, with Grace Foy coming on in the game’s dying embers in a fruitless striker-for-a-defender move.
With Molloy and Lafayette out, it meant a first start of the season for youngster Fallon Connolly-Jackson – more on her in a second – at left-wingback, with Monique Robinson replacing Molloy in midfield. Captain Satara Murray, who has barely played this season due to injury, was at least fit enough for the bench:
I think Lafayette has been pretty good this season at left-back / wingback, but this performance from Connolly-Jackson was a real eye-opener. Connolly-Jackson was part of the squad last season as a 17-year-old, making nine appearances. On the strength of her 88 minutes here, she might well get a run in the side.
A couple of times she showed a real burst of speed to force a turnover deep in Sunderland’s half, and when she got the chance to face up to a defender with the ball at her feet we saw the kind of livewire dribbling that gets fans on the edge of their seats. A player who can make an opposition defender fall into another dimension as she did here is always going to be an asset:
That pass ended in United’s best chance of the game; this moment ended in United’s second best chance of the game:
That’s Connolly-Jackson in the bottom-right corner. She intercepted this pass (!), played a superb ball behind the last Sunderland defender for Maria Farrugia to run onto and then sank to her knees in frustration as Jacqui Hand somehow stuck her shot wide of the empty goal.
While she basically created two brilliant chances off her own back, my favourite Connolly-Jackson moment came in the second half where she absolutely obliterated a Sunderland attacker in a firm-but-fair shoulder barge that an NFL cornerback would’ve been proud of. The forward in question was about three times her size. Yeah, she’s a Blade.
United endured a shaky start in this one, with Sunderland in control for the opening 20 minutes or so. The Blades couldn’t get out of their own half, and were spared an early concession by the referee’s whistle after Dale was adjudged to have barged Sian Rogers. Rogers took some punishment in this game, with virtually every set-piece seeing an opposition player running into her – fortunately the referee was on the spot.
Sunderland’s Katie Kitching then beat Rogers to a through-ball but couldn’t control her finish, and the Blades keeper had to make a close-range stop from Dale from a set-piece. It looked like being a long afternoon for United but then Connolly-Jackson took over and made three good chances in quick succession.
Amy Goddard was left sat in the Bramall Lane End for the first one, and Connolly-Jackson’s pullback was perfect for Robinson who stabbed a first-time shot into the side netting from six yards. The next moment came off her winning the ball back, above, and Farrugia did brilliantly to draw the keeper and slide it across for Hand who contrived to put it wide. A panicking Sunderland then dropped Emily Scarr back to help cover but Connolly-Jackson beat both her and Goddard anyway and again found Robinson who again slid wide from close range.
Not taking any of those chances was a killer, although United were well in the game after half-time too. Sunderland cracked the bar with a lovely strike from Libbi McInnes and Farrugia had a weaving run to the edge of the box but couldn’t get a clean hit away.
I touched on Sunderland’s counter-attacking prowess in last week’s newsletter and that was how the game was won with five minutes to go. With the Blades pushed up looking to win it, one good pass left Sunderland streaking into the box where sub Ellen Jones teed up Dale to smash powerfully past Rogers. The shot going through the legs of both Leanne Cowan and the goalkeeper kind of summed up United’s day.
The Black Cats saw the rest of the game out easily with United unable to even get close to their penalty area. With former Blade Isobel Goodwin banging in her sixth and seventh goals of the season for London City – and she really did bang one of them – I’m left looking at our bench and wondering what might have been.
Sunderland climb to fifth in the Championship, which is a really good return considering some of their top players left during the summer. Like United, they only started the transition to full-time 18 months ago – but unlike United they’ve been allowed to build upon that despite some inevitable departures.
For United, Blackburn climbed above them in the table but in doing so kept Portsmouth rooted to the bottom. That three point buffer remains as the Blades hit their winter break, with United’s next Championship fixture scheduled for January 19th when Newcastle come to Bramall Lane. In the interim, Portsmouth will have played their game in hand - incidentally against Sunderland.
United still have at least three cup games before January, though, with Durham away on Sunday in the Conti Cup and an FA Cup third round game on the weekend of December 8th (the draw is yet to be made). Finally, there’s one more Conti Cup game on December 11th when the Blades return to Blackburn before signing off for a month.
Back to hopefully talk about a better result next week – thank you for reading.
