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.

A 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.

Leeds 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.

United’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.”