Conditions put wind up Wearsiders

SO IT is advantage Barnsley in the automatic promotion race.

Sunderland’s opportunity to take matters into their own hands was blown away by Storm Gareth, with strong winds and driving rain at Oakwell turning the game into a lottery in which neither side held the winning ticket.

Had Sunderland won, they would have moved to within a single point of the Tykes, while retaining their game in hand.

As it is the gap remains four points and, even if Sunderland win their game in hand, they still need Barnsley to slip up.

In that sense, even though they were the home team, Barnsley will have been happier with the outcome than the Black Cats.

However, given the conditions, Jack Ross was not too downhearted and judging by the noise generated by the windswept 4,500 travelling fans, they were not too downhearted either.

They recognised the blustery weather could have forced a mistake which decided the game and that four-point gap might easily have become seven.

The hosts played the better football and created the better chances, although it may be they merely coped better with the conditions.

Sunderland survived a windassisted first-half Barnsley barrage in which the hosts hit the bar through Mamadou Thiam and Jon McLaughlin was called upon to make a couple of good saves.

With the wind at their backs in the second half, the Black Cats improved but struggled to carve out clear-cut chances,h their best opportunity falling to Max Power – who was drafted into the side to fill the gap left by the suspended George Honeyman – but he prodded wide under pressure from a defender when through on goal.

The goalless stalemate meant Sunderland’s run of scoring in consecutive league games is over, ending after 43 matches which spanned the entirety of this season and the back end of the last.

Barnsley, who have the best defensive record in League One having kept more clean sheets and conceded fewer goals than anyone else, became the first team to shut Sunderland out in the league since Preston in the Championship on March 17 last year.

However, the Black Cats have extended their unbeaten run to 18 games in all competitions.