Don Goodman makes fresh Sunderland promotion admission – ‘I know for a fact…’
Don Goodman is hopeful that Sunderland don’t suffer psychologically from results like the one against Plymouth with a top-two finish in sight.
The Black Cats maintained their promotion hopes on Monday night (3 February) with a 3-2 victory away to Middlesbrough, bouncing back from a shock result against Plymouth.
Sunderland dropped two points at home to The Pilgrims with similar results like that occurring throughout the season and Goodman, when speaking to Mackem News, is hopeful that them sort of performances don’t overly impact them mentally.
“I think we’re only going to find out at the final reckoning, aren’t we?” Goodman explained.
“They’ve lost away at both Plymouth and Stoke. They’ve lost away at Watford, lost away at Sheffield United. In reality, I know for a fact, they were games that they didn’t deserve to lose. So there are results in there that they’d like to improve. You just hope that psychologically the performance against Plymouth isn’t a bit of a setback.
“They’re at home against Watford and Luton who both struggle away, and then they’re away at Leeds. And then after that, I think that’s pretty much it in terms of the top team. So it’s a case of getting through the next sort of three or four fixtures, putting some points on the board.
“You have to back yourself to have a really good, not unbeaten run, but winning run, winning three, four, five games in a row. And that will really give you a chance of a top-two finish.”
Sunderland need to be consistent from here on out.
While the Black Cats picked up a huge three points against Boro, there were still some warning signs in the first half an hour, which ultimately saw them go a goal down and perhaps fortunate for that to only be the case.
As the game went on, the performance improved and they were certainly deserving of all three points but that inability to maintain that performance throughout a full 90 minutes can prove costly.
Moving forward, the Wearsiders have to find a way to do that and if they can, they have very chance of achieving automatic promotion back to the Premier League.
As things stand, five points separate them from league leaders Leeds and with an encounter at Elland Road approaching, it could be a potential title-deciding fixture.
In other Sunderland news, the Black Cats made a loan announcement on this Under-23 player.
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