Sunderland midfielder Max Power believes that his side's performances in recent weeks have shown that they are capable of winning promotion back to the Championship this season, even if results haven't quite gone their way.
A 1-0 defeat away at Shrewsbury Town on Saturday has left the Black Cats eighth in League One, three points off the play-offs and eight adrift of automatic promotion, although Power believes his side have shown more than enough recently to suggest they can overhaul that deficit.
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Speaking in the aftermath of that defeat at Shrewsbury about their performance at The New Meadow, Power was quoted by The Chronicle as saying: “Sometimes you get days when you don’t get what you deserve, Saturday was one of them.
“From start to finish we dominated, we created great chances, last Tuesday we were ruthless but we weren’t on Saturday. Simple as that.
“That’s football, we were disappointed but we couldn’t do much more.
“If we keep that performance level up then we will win more games than we lose."
Assessing what that means for the squad, it seems Power is still optimistic things can improve for Sunderland, as he continued: “There is a long way to go in the season. Are we where we want to be? No. But there is enough in this squad, there are some really good signs."
Even so, all four of Sunderland's league defeats this season have come in games away from home - including their last three on the bounce at Lincoln, Wycombe and Shrewsbury - although Power believes the situation in that regard is improving, with the 26-year-old claiming: “Lincoln was a really poor performance.
“Was Wycombe high quality? No, a draw would probably have been a fair result.
“We took the game to Shrewsbury.
“I don’t want anybody to be negative, I know you come in for criticism when you don’t win a game but anyone watching would appreciate the performance, albeit without the result.”
Sunderland are next in action on Tuesday night when they travel to Oxford United in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup, before turning their attention back to league matters on Saturday afternoon, when they host struggling Southend United at The Stadium of Light.
The Verdict
I think Power does have a point here.
Sunderland have shown signs of improvement under Phil Parkinson, and the 5-0 thrashing of Tranmere at home that sandwiched those two defeats to Wycombe and Shrewsbury on the road was a reminder of just what they are capable of at this level.
Indeed, given this is a team that made it to the League One play-off final last year, only to be denied by a last-minute winner, there can be no doubt that Sunderland have the capability to compete for a return to the Championship again this year.
Even so, the teams that are ahead of them at the minute are there for a reason, and you imagine they will continue to pick up points throughout the course of the campaign, meaning Sunderland too must do that, if they are to have any hope of securing that return to the second-tier.