Ilian Meslier makes 97th-minute Leeds howler as goalkeeper completely misses the ball | Football | Sport

Ilian Meslier made a huge mistake to gift Sunderland a dramatic equaliser against Leeds United with virtually the last kick of the game. Leeds looked set to claim an important victory over their Championship promotion rivals but were ultimately forced to settle for a draw.

Chris Rigg opened the scoring for Sunderland inside 10 minutes, with Joel Piroe hitting back for the visitors shortly afterwards. Junior Firpo fired Leeds ahead in the second half before all of their hard work was undone in a late moment of madness.

With just seconds left at the end of stoppage time, Sunderland midfielder Alan Browne clipped a hopeful ball into the area but nobody was there to meet it. It bounced all the way through to Meslier, who would have been expecting to make a routine catch.

Instead, he got his bearings totally wrong and completely missed the ball as it rolled past him and into the back of the net. It sparked wild scenes of celebration at the Stadium of Light, with his Leeds team-mates left in utter disbelief at what they had just witnessed.

After the final whistle, former Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips said: “You think you’ve seen it all in football until this happens. It’s only the goalkeeper who can come out and give his reasons. He’ll say it hit a divot, but when you look at the ground there are no divots there.

“It’s the spin of the ball. I think he’s just taken his eye off it. Maybe he’s looking for a quick counter-attack, I don’t know, but I feel for the lad. It’s one of those where unfortunately he’s going to be remembered for it.

“The players have got to put their arms around him and lift his head up. I can’t explain it. It’s just one of those unfortunate incidents.”

Browne said he was ‘almost embarrassed’ to claim the equaliser, which actually went down as an own goal from Firpo. It saw table-toppers Sunderland maintain a three-point gap over Leeds, who slipped behind Burnley and into third place as a result of the spoils being shared.

“I thought the boys would be fuming [with the ball into the box] but the keeper chucked it in the net,” said Browne. “I am almost embarrassed but I’ll still claim it.

“In the end we got the lucky break, whether we deserved it or not I am not sure. To be fair, Leeds came at us. We didn’t really open them up and create the chance we needed.”