League One table: Results and analysis as Sunderland nick crucial point and Wigan stumble in promotion race

League One’s thrilling promotion race looks set to serve up the sort of twist that would make M Night Shyamalan blush.

How else to explain an evening of frantic drama that culminated in a late leveller on Wearside that turned the race for the top six upside down and upended Rotherham’s hopes of confirming a promotion that has seemed in the post for much of the season?

It said it all that the Millers maintained their position in the automatic promotion slots but with a gnawing sense of disappointment that they had become the latest victims of Sunderland’s dogged refusal to succumb to defeat.

Alex Neil’s side have made it a trademark of theirs to score late goals but this time they owed their late, uplifting leveller to Rotherham defender Michael Ihiekwe, who inexplicably headed past Viktor Johansson to bring parity to a game that the Millers had seemed to be navigating fairly easily.

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That Ihiekwe had been the man to open the scoring, benefiting from lacklustre Sunderland marking to power in a first half header, stuck to the script of League One’s tale of the unexpected.

All of that means both teams face nervy afternoons on Saturday as they look to plot a route back to the Championship. The Millers must win at Gillingham to keep Wigan and MK Dons at bay while Sunderland – by virtue of this point – go to Morecambe requiring a win to book their ticket for the play-off party.

Suffice to say, the Black Cats will need to improve while Rotherham – hard done by in the end – probably just need to replicate this sort of controlled performance to get the win which would reassert their claim to be the ultimate yo-yo club. Having been relegated three times from the Championship in the last six years, they have secured instant promotion twice already and under the sure tutelage of Paul Warne they are heavily fancied for a third.

But Warne will need his team to dredge from their reserves of character to finish the job. Promotion looked a sure thing until the turn of the year but they have won only three times in 11 games and despite the promise of Chiedozie Ogbene and Arsenal loanee Jordi Osei-Tutu – this game’s outstanding player – they were not able to finish the job.

League One table

Seven clubs are still vying for League One’s three promotion slots

Results

Leaders Wigan must wait to confirm promotion after losing 3-2 at Portsmouth, while Sheffield Wednesday kept up their play-off hopes with a 3-2 win that leaves Fleetwood facing a final-day fight against the drop.

• Fleetwood 2-3 Sheff Weds
• Portsmouth 3-2 Wigan
• Sunderland 1-1 Rotherham

For Sunderland, the big positive is that they kept pushing and handed a crowd of more than 33,000 reasons to believe that they can return to the Championship.

It has not always been pretty for the Black Cats, but it is usually effective. Neil has stripped back Sunderland since taking over, arresting a slide that was threatening their play-off aspirations by sending them back to basics.

Packing a midfield full of ball winners like Corry Evans and Jay Matete rather than the elegance of the likes of Alex Pritchard and supporters’ favourite Dan Neil has proved a successful strategy but against the Millers they came unstuck.

Rotherham had most of the first half and Ihiekwe’s goal was just reward for a display that belied their recent away form. End of season tension echoed around the Stadium of Light.

Sunderland showed signs of coming back into the game after Neil made smart second half changes and substitute Pritchard had the Stadium of Light crowd off their feet when he fizzed a free-kick into the side netting. Time was running out but after their recent late shows, few were departing the stadium.

Sure enough, the moment arrived when Jack Clarke’s free-kick was met by Ihiekwe to breathe fresh life into Sunderland’s promotion bid. Momentum is back with them and they head to Morecambe in good spirits but given the nature of this League One promotion race, wary of a sting in the tail.

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