Why Leeds’ latest defeat could be a shot in the arm
Cooper claimed United’s display at the Stadium of Light would act as a badly-needed shot in the arm, despite the club’s FA Cup campaign ending in a 1-0 loss.
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Hide AdA deadly Patrick van Aanholt finish midway through the first half saw Gus Poyet’s side safely into the fourth round but the Premier League side pushed their luck after half-time, surviving a strong penalty appeal and a last-gasp chance which fell to Cooper.
United’s stand-in captain looked set to force a replay at the very end of a competitive tie but his glancing header came back off Sunderland goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon’s right-hand post.
A disappointed Cooper said he thought the “header was in” but the centre-back – a replacement as skipper for the injured Stephen Warnock – drew encouragement from United’s display ahead of a crucial spell of league fixtures.
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Hide AdLeeds are in the thick of a relegation battle in the Championship and head coach Neil Redfearn made seven changes to his team for yesterday’s FA Cup tie.
Cooper said: “Sunderland are a great team and they were always going to have most of the possession but especially in the second half I thought we took the game to them and created a few chances. They didn’t go in but hopefully we can take a lot from this into our next league game which is very important. It was a good performance to build on. It’ll certainly put us on track. we gave a good account of ourselves.”
Redfearn, meanwhile, disput-ed referee Mike Dean’s decision to award a free-kick for a foul by Sebastian Larsson on United’s left-back charlie taylor early in the second half.
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Hide AdUnited’s players appealed en masse for a penalty but Dean ruled that the tackle had been made just outside Sunderland’s box.
The decision and a save by Pantilimon from Adryan helped Poyet’s side, who had dominated the first half, to ride a concerted period of pressure.
“it looked like a penalty to me but the referee’s made his deci-sion,” Redfearn said. “You’ve got to abide by it but that came on the back of quite a weight of pres-sure from us. A goal at that time to make it 1-1 – I think we’d have gone on and won.
“We hit the post, we had Adryan’s chance and the penalty appeal as well. We could have had more than one goal.”