Sunderland’s impressive season came to a disappointing end on Tuesday night as they fell 2-0 against Luton Town in the playoff semi-final second leg.
Having won 2-1 at the Stadium of Light last week, Tony Mowbray’s side looked to be in a strong position against the Hatters and would have been hoping to make it to Wembley, where they would have been one match away from securing back-to-back promotions.
What happened in Luton vs Sunderland?
Unfortunately for the Black Cats, that dream wouldn’t become a reality as the aggregate score was levelled at 2-2 within ten minutes as Gabriel Osho smashed home from a corner.
Mowbray’s side were trailing on aggregate before half-time as centre-back Tom Lockyer headed in Alfie Doughty’s wicked delivery, with injuries in defence leaving Sunderland exposed in the air against a physically dominant Luton side.
It was always going to be tough for Sunderland given that the likes of Dennis Cirkin, Danny Batth and Ross Stewart were all absent from the matchday squad.
This forced Mowbray to play both Lynden Gooch and Patrick Roberts as full-backs at Kenilworth Road, despite them being short tricky wingers, and this certainly backfired against Rob Edwards’ giant Luton side.
How did Roberts play against Luton?
As per Sofascore, the former Manchester City man would earn a shocking 6.2/10 rating for his performance, which was comfortably the worst of any player to start the game from both sides.
It is perhaps harsh to judge the 26-year-old given he was playing in an unfamiliar position, but it wasn’t just his defending which let the Black Cats down on Tuesday night.
Mowbray will have selected Roberts on the right in the hope that he could attack and link up with Amad Diallo, so it was perhaps no surprise that the slight winger struggled against Doughty down the left, as he was dribbled past three times and won just eight of 26 duels during the 90 minutes.
However, his performance going forward was a real letdown and arguably a major factor in Sunderland’s failure to find the goal which could have taken the game to extra time or taken the north-east club to Wembley.
The English winger lost the ball on a remarkable 23 occasions against Luton, as just one of his five crosses and none of his three long balls found a teammate.
Roberts is certainly known for his dribbling ability but tried to do it far too often at Kenilworth Road, succeeding with just four of his 12 attempts on the night, although he did nearly score a wonder goal after beating a number of Luton defenders on a mazy run.
With Sunderland struggling to create chances late on, the right-winger engineered the space for three shots but put every single one off target, when a pass would have perhaps been the better option.
His greediness was disappointing on a night when Sunderland needed to be at their best as a team to get through, and his underwhelming performance was no doubt one major factor in the 2-0 defeat.
