Inside a week of frustration for Sunderland and the revealing insight from Tony Mowbray that followed

When Coventry City doubled their lead with a matter of minutes to play, that really ought to have been that. And, of course, in the end it was.

But Sunderland still managed to find a way to swing a few punches, Jewison Bennette doing well to spark a chance that Amad took sublimely; it was a finish that didn’t deserve to go down as a mere consolation goal.

They kept going, too. But it felt fitting that when they broke to the edge of the box with another fine, sweeping move, Abdoullah Ba could only swing a poor cross straight into the arms of Ben Wilson. Just a touch more composure and calm, and he would have seen that the better option would have been to shift it right where red-and-white shirts were amassing. Which is not to knock Ba, who has been lively and a joy to watch every time he has got on the pitch in recent games, gliding past players with an almost comical ease.

It’s just that this little passage of play went some way to summing up what turned into a bitterly frustrating afternoon. Coventry were just that little bit smarter, that little bit more precise, that little bit more streetwise.

Which is no surprise, really. They’re a side who have been building towards these play-off pushes for a while and in truth, these are the afternoons we feared this Sunderland side might go through on their own journey.

This was one of those days, one where Mowbray starts an answer in his press conference saying that he doesn’t want to talk about the officials, and is sat five minutes later still despairing and with his head in his hands. It was a sympathetic audience, onlookers from both sides left baffled by the referee’s willingness to let what seemed like fairly obvious fouls run. Mowbray, for the record, said he was happy with that approach but that it was one that should have been set out before the game.

It was significant to the game, though, that Coventry City seemed to grasp this a little quicker than their opposition. Sunderland were still visibly frustrated while Coventry were playing on - quite literally in the case of the first goal. At half time Mowbray told his players that they were in a fight and they had to start throwing some punches of their own.

That Mowbray was a little more upbeat in dissecting back-to-back defeats than you might expect was a reflection of the fact that for large parts of the second half, they from box to box looked like a very good football side.

The first half had from bright beginnings been pretty poor, Sunderland looking hugely vulnerable to the counter attack and conceded some big chances along the way. In the second they limited Coventry, dominating possession and pushing the home side back into their final third.

Did they do enough with it? Probably not, but to Mowbray that was no surprise. He candidly said afterwards that this is a team a couple of strikers away from being very good, and that the lack of a presence in the box had cost his team dearly over the last week. Joe Gelhardt looks a very talented footballer but one that looks most comfortable dropping in to link up with other attacking players.

For large parts of this game Coventry and three three centre-halves were able to defend their box with relative ease, the upshot being too many moves that hovered around the edge of the box but never really threatened to develop into anything more.

Mowbray’s substitutions brought plenty of energy and some quality, too, but while Sunderland looked dangerous it is also fair to say they did not look entirely cohesive. This, too, is to be expected with so much inexperience on the pitch.

All of this is why the Sunderland head coach warned repeatedly against changing expectations for the season, even as his side pushed into the dizzy heights of the top six. He warned a dip was not just probable but perhaps even inevitable.

All could see that this was sage advice, it just doesn’t make the frustration any less acute. At the full time whistle Amad sunk to the floor, lying with his hands on his head. These players, you suspect, sense just as well as their fans that they aren’t far off in this division.

Mowbray said that if you put Viktor Gyokeres in his team, he felt they would have won. The Swede was nothing short of outstanding here, particularly in the last half an hour when he often had no one within thirty yards of him and yet still somehow managed time and time again to get hold of it and drag his team-mates up the pitch.

It would be disrespectful to a well-organised side with plenty of talent (before his hamstring injury Kasey Palmer had been superb, too) to say that just one player was the difference, but he most certainly demonstrated exactly what Sunderland have missed since Ross Stewart’s injury.

Mowbray was keen to keep this disappointing week in perspective. This young team has exceeded all expectations so far this season and their trajectory is unmistakably upward.

This is, Mowbray said, a journey and these are still the early stages of it. When warning of potentially difficult times along the way, he made clear that his team are very capable of then flipping it and going on a run of their own. It is still all to play for.

The fear is that Sunderland will fall short not because they aren’t good enough, because as Mowbray put it, they just don’t quite have the right tools just now. He has to try and find the answers to keep this top-six push going.