As the rain lashed down at a near-deserted Bloomfield Road, it was put to Tony Mowbray that seven points out of nine over the Christmas and New Year period was a perfectly acceptable return. It was fair comment.
You would have to go back exactly a century to 1922-23 to find a season where Sunderland won three league games between Boxing Day and New Year's Day - and even then, in the days of two points for a win, they only collected six points for their troubles.
So Mowbray could have been forgiven for accepting the compliment. But it is a sign of the growing confidence on Wearside that instead he spoke of 'frustration' at dropping two points against Blackpool, calling it an 'opportunity missed', and talking of the need to take such opportunities if his team is to 'put down a marker'.
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Sunderland fans will be happy to hear Mowbray is not the kind of head coach who is content with seven points out of nine. They demand more and they want the man in charge of their team to demand more, too.
That said, there is no point in making the perfect the enemy of the good. And there is no doubt that Sunderland have had a good Christmas-New Year period.
A Boxing Day home win against third-placed Blackburn, a midweek rout of relegation candidates Wigan Athletic in Lancashire, and then a draw against the struggling Seasiders, have lifted Sunderland from a midtable position going into Christmas to a play-off spot at the beginning of 2023 - albeit they may drop a place or two depending on results today. It is not as though Sunderland have had things all their own way, either.
Far from it. Mowbray has had to cope with a catalogue of injury problems in the first half of the season, and at Blackpool he was without Alex Pritchard, Danny Batth, Lynden Gooch, Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese, Niall Huggins, and long-term casualty Elliot Embleton.
On top of that, a sickness bug also swept through the camp at the end of last week which meant Corry Evans was on the bench in name only, while Luke O'Nien only declared himself fit on the morning of the game. And, to put the tin hat on it, in-form frontman Ellis Simms was recalled from his loan spell by parent club Everton on the eve of the game.
So perhaps, in those circumstances, the draw at Blackpool was not such a bad result after all. Mowbray's sense of frustration was understandable, however, because his team could and should have won at Blackpool.
They had fallen behind to Shayne Lavery's goal midway through the first half but the Black Cats soon took control of the game, hitting the crossbar either side of half-time through Amad and then Ross Stewart. Eventually, Stewart scored midway through the second period - his sixth goal in his last five outings, including finding the net in each of his four games since returning from injury.
From then on it was simply a case of whether Sunderland could find a winner, or whether Blackpool could hang on. Chances came and went, and Blackpool - who had to survive the final three minutes of injury time a man short after Callum Connolly had been sent off for a second bookable offence - were relieved to pick up a point, even though it merely extended their winless streak to nine games.
With an FA Cup third round trip to Shrewsbury Town coming up on Saturday, Sunderland can now take a short break from their Championship campaign and Mowbray will be hoping that the injury situation improves somewhat so he can make changes at the New Meadow and ease some players back into action. But he will have also taken heart from the performances of young players such as Trai Hume, Abdoullah Ba, and Edouard Michut, in the games during this period, which have demonstrated that they are capable of playing a part in the second half of the season.
Sunderland still need to strengthen in the January transfer window - not least by bringing in at least one striker now that Simms has gone - but this group of players has proved it can more than cope at this level.
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