Referee slammed for ‘absolutely blatant’ error in Sunderland defeat v Leicester City

Sunderland lost 1-0 at home to Leicester City in the Championship on Tuesday night, with one refereeing decision standing out.

Sunderland returned to the Stadium of Light on Tuesday where they welcomed league leaders Leicester City.

Both teams went into this one in some dire form; the Black Cats on the back of four defeats and the Foxes on the back of three.

But it was the runaway leaders who ended their losing streak, with Jamie Vardy scoring in the 13th minute to hand Leicester the eventual points.

Controversy struck towards the end though when Dan Ballard appeared to be held back inside the Leicester City penalty box.

Dan Ballard brought down inside Leicester City penalty area, but no penalty
Substitute Adil Aouchiche played a neat through ball to Ballard who was surprisingly through on goal.

But Leicester’s Hamza Choudhury appeared to put his hand on Ballard’s shoulder, with the big centre-back then going down inside the Leicester penalty area.

Referee Sunny Gill didn’t award the penalty, and much to the dismay of journalist Michael Graham who posted on X:

A bitter pill for Sunderland to swallow

There’s been a few seemingly poor refereeing decisions in the past week or so in the Championship, with several teams seeing goals ruled out or penalties denied when arguably they should’ve been given.

Without VAR, it’s the nature of the Championship, and the argument is that it’s the same for every team; some will go your way and others won’t.

And when it’s not going Sunderland’s way, it’s really not going their way.

Five-straight defeats now has arguably put some pressure on interim boss Mike Dodds who was somewhat criticised for changing the shape of the Sunderland XI once again last night.

Although the performance against Leicester wasn’t terrible, and there were some positives to take from it including the performance of Chris Rigg, it’s another defeat.

The Black Cats remain in 10th place of the table but are now 10 points behind Hull City in 6th with 12 games of the season left to play.

Sunderland are next in action away at Southampton this weekend.

The Saints first host Preston North End on Wednesday night in the Championship, and they’ll be desperate to earn a win and keep their automatic promotion hopes alive after a dip in form in recent weeks.

And they’ll surely view a game against a misfiring Sunderland outfit as the perfect chance to get some more points on the board.

Kick off is at 3pm on Saturday.