Sunderland 0-0 Leeds: Bottom club's slump is about more than bad luck

Sunderland's 0-0 draw with Leeds United at the Stadium of Light on Sunday will not be remembered as a thriller, but it may be remembered as the afternoon the scale of their problem became clear. A side that finished last season with 14 wins and 12 draws from 38 Premier League games under Régis Le Bris, at 1.42 points per game, is now bottom of the table after losing five of its opening seven league matches.

The match itself was even on possession, 50-50, and level on shots on target, four apiece. Sunderland had more shots, 15 to 11, and more expected goals, 0.91 to 0.57. Leeds, though, had the better of the big chances, two to one, and more corners, five to four. A goalless draw was a fair reflection of a game where neither side did enough to win it, but the underlying numbers point to something more troubling for the home side.

Sunderland's 0.91 expected goals here is barely half their average of 1.82 across earlier 2026/2027 matches in all competitions. Their open-play expected goals, 0.62, is similarly down on an average of 1.21. Most striking is the drop in touches in the opposition box: 18 here, against an average of 29.8 in their earlier matches this season. That is not a one-match blip in isolation, but it is also not a season-long trend on its own. What it does is sit alongside a league record of one win, two draws and five defeats from eight games, at 0.63 points per game, and make the case that Sunderland are not simply finishing cold. They are not creating enough in the first place.

The finishing question is worth separating out. Sunderland's goals minus expected goals in this match was -0.91, against an average of 0.0 across their earlier 2026/2027 matches. That means they scored roughly a goal fewer than their chances suggested here, but their earlier matches had been broadly in line with expectation. The alternative reading — that this is a finishing problem — does not hold up as well as the chance-creation one. The bigger issue is that the chances are not coming at the rate they were.

That points towards the summer turnover. Sunderland have signed Jules Ahoka, Kevin Danso, Melker Ellborg, Juan Riquelme Angulo, Malick Fofana and Nilson Angulo since the summer, while Daniel Neil, Anthony Patterson, Eliezer Mayenda, Dennis Cirkin, Adil Aouchiche and Patrick Roberts have departed. That is a significant reshaping of a squad that had found a working balance last season. The research does not confirm the exact composition of the starting XI or how many of the new arrivals have settled, so the causal claim has to be framed carefully: the turnover is a plausible explanation for why the earlier balance has not returned, but the next matches will show whether it is the explanation.

The context around the fixture matters too. Sunderland were held to a draw by Lech Poznań in the Europa League on the Thursday before the Leeds game, despite creating a host of chances. That was a different competition and a different kind of match, but it fits the pattern of a side doing enough to compete without converting. Leeds, meanwhile, have made a decent start to the season and may feel they were unfortunate not to take all three points from their most recent league outing against Manchester United.

Whether he starts against Leeds and how much his absence has contributed to the poor run are open questions the research does not answer. It is a run of five defeats in seven, and the chance-creation numbers against Leeds suggest the problem runs deeper than the scoreline.

Le Bris's position is not something the research addresses, and it would be wrong to speculate. What can be said is that the 2025/2026 campaign, with 1.42 points per game, was a success by any measure, and the current 0.63 points per game is less than half that rate. The Leeds draw was a chance to stop the slide. It did not. The next few matches will tell us whether this is a squad still finding its feet after a summer of change, or a side that has lost something it cannot easily replace.