Can the Lads remain unbeaten at end an incredible 2025 on a high against Leeds United today?!
Saturday 28th December 2025
Sunderland v Leeds United – Premier League
Stadium of Light Kick-Off: 14:00
Tickets & Match Coverage
Tickets: Tickets are sold out.
TV/Stream: Full live match coverage is available via Sky Sports.
Radio: Full live match commentary available via BBC Radio Newcastle (not online)
Don’t forget to follow the blow-by-blow account of the game on the Roker Report Twitter feed (@RokerReport) and check out the player ratings after the full-time whistle at www.RokerReport.sbnation.com!
The build-up…
Times change, but my favourite fixture was always the Boxing Day game — home or away — and TV has dictated that this year we play on the 28th. Oh well, just another potential item we can list for a future Room 101 episode on Haway The Podcast.
It’s a sign of how this season is going that we could look at it in terms of winning one game in the last four, or two in the last eight, but because of the performances, it feels so much better.
To be fair, the win over the visitors comes into that, but this run also includes that moment against Arsenal, coming from behind to beat Bournemouth, almost beating Liverpool, City requiring a deflection to break through, and a good away showing at Brighton.
One more sign of how we’re going this season can be seen in today’s fixture. When the final whistle went in our final game of the season – that ended in a 1-0 defeat at home to QPR – Leeds had finished a mere 24 points ahead of us. Ok, we lost the last five preparing for the play-offs, but stick three wins in there, and it’s still a 15-point gap.
They also had a head start in the transfer market. Not only did they know they were promoted for a while, but they had the time when we were navigating the play-offs, but as we approach the halfway point of the season, our visitors today sit five points and two places above the drop, while we are two points off a Champions League place.
The whole world is expecting us to crumble during AFCON, and Brighton was the first sign that teams will know at the very least that they’ve been in a game.
All that talk of the fact that this should be a Boxing Day fixture above reminds me of when it was just that – 23 years ago. Two former England managers (if you include caretakers) were in charge of both clubs, as Terry Venables brought his side north to take on Howard Wilkinson’s Sunderland.
Our current first-team coach, Michael Proctor, opened the scoring in the first half, but a young lad by the name of James Milner equalised just before the hour to become the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history – a record that stood until 2005 when future Sunderland striker James Vaughan scored for Everton. Incidentally, Robbie Fowler scored the winner that day via a penalty.
But after sixteen years out of the top flight, it was about time that Leeds returned in 2020. But after three years in that first stint, they returned to the second tier, and two years later, they’re back and desperate to re-establish themselves, just as they were around a quarter of a century ago.
So much so, there was speculation that Daniel Farke, the man who got them back, wasn’t the right man to take the job of keeping them there. After he survived the rumour mill, he got off to a decent start with two wins in the first five, but things went a little downhill after that.
One win and six defeats followed in the next eight, which saw them drop into the bottom three, but two wins and two draws since then have meant they have enough daylight between themselves and the drop that gives them a chance to relax over the festive period – well, a bit anyway.
Three of those games came at Elland Road, which highlights their away form, or lack of it, so far this season. Only four of their nineteen points accumulated so far this term have come away from Elland Road, and those came via a win at Wolves and a draw at Brentford. Put this up against our unbeaten home record, and we should be favourites this afternoon.
The betting…
The bookies have the Lads at 6/4 to win the game, while Leeds are priced at 9/5, and the draw is 11/5.
Head to head… in Sunderland
(All competitions)
- Sunderland wins: 25
- Draws: 8
- Leeds wins: 16
- Sunderland goals: 76
- Leeds goals: 57
Last time we met… at the Stadium of Light
Friday 4th October 2024
Championship
Sunderland 2-2 Leeds United
[Rigg 9’, Firpo (OG) 90’ – Piroe 22’, Firpo 56’]
Sunderland: Patterson, Hume, Mepham, O’Nien, Cirkin, Neil, Bellingham, Roberts (Watson), Rigg (Browne), Mundle, Isidor Substitutes not used: Moore, Hjelde, Johnson, Aleksic, Ba, Connolly, Rusyn
Leeds United: Meslier, Bogle, Firpo, Tanaka, Rodon, Struijk, Gnonto (Byram), Rothwell, Piroe (Joseph), Aaronson, Ramazani (Schmidt) Substitutes not used: Darlow, Debayo, Chambers, Gelhardt, Bamford
Attendance: 41,769
Prediction…
Sunderland 2-0 Leeds United
It’s going to be a tougher afternoon than some might expect, but I reckon it could be the third time this season that we beat someone by more than a single goal.
Category: General Sports
