Tony Mowbray believes if Sunderland had scored once against Preston they could have gone on to score three or four. The Black Cats were held to a goalless draw by a Preston side that boasts the Championship's tightest defence, having kept eight clean sheets and conceded only four goals in 11 games so far.
Sunderland dominated possession against the Lancashire side at the Stadium of Light but could not breach Preston's back line. Sunderland's cause was not helped by the fact that, with Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms injured, they have no centre-forwards available but Mowbray refused to use that as an excuse - pointing out that they had scored five goals in their previous two games at Reading and Watford without Stewart and Simms.
But he did say that those goals came on the road, and that at times it can be more difficult to score at home because teams are harder to tempt out of their defensive shape. "We had attacking players on the pitch," said Mowbray. "Patrick [Roberts] scored two against Reading, and we've scored five in our last two away games.
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"It's always going to be more difficult to score at home - you'd think it wouldn't be, but other teams when you go away have to open up their shape a little bit. If we'd have scored one yesterday, we might have scored three or four because Preston wouldn't have played as they played.
"They would have left more spaces and we're pretty good on transition, we can pick a pass and break away and run and look like we can score again. When they didn't have to commit, they didn't, so to break away and score becomes more difficult."
While Sunderland were unable to find a winning goal, they did keep a third clean sheet in five games under Mowbray. He said: "I think we were generally the team in the ascendancy and yet Preston always carried that threat.
"Every set-play was a danger to us because we had no-one to win the first contact apart from Aji [Alese] and Danny Batth. So it was a good clean sheet, it was just disappointing that we couldn't find a way to finish it off because we had lots of good opportunities, without them turning into great goalscoring chances."
Sunderland are back in action on Tuesday night when Blackpool, who lost 1-0 at home to Norwich City yesterday, visit the Stadium of Light.
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