Sunderland must show the same attitude they did against Sheffield Wednesday in the League One play-off final against Wycombe says former Cats captain

Alex Neil’s side secured a 2-1 win over Wednesday on aggregate in two evenly-matched semi-final fixtures and will now go into the final as favourites.

Sunderland are now on a 15-match unbeaten streak and have only been beaten once since Neil took charge in February – a huge contrast to when the team took just one point from five matches prior to the aforementioned run.

“It’s massive with whatever you do, confidence is key,” Bennett told the Echo.

“We always talk about teams who are playing with a lot of confidence and about that consistency, that’s something which Sunderland have had recently.

“The good thing is that when you look at it, we are going into the play-offs where the pressure hasn’t really been on Sunderland in regards to being favourites.

“A little bit of the pressure has been off us and all of a sudden we have slowly but surely been getting results.

“You look at Sheffield Wednesday and people were thinking it’s going to be a hard game, but if they had drawn MK Dons or Wycombe in the play-offs people would have had a different outlook on the game thinking you have to beat Wycombe, or beat MK Dons.

“Now what you don’t want to be doing is getting carried away because you’re thinking that you’ve beaten maybe the strongest team out of the three and that it’s going to be plain sailing playing against Wycombe. You have to go with the same attitude.”

Wycombe finished a point behind Sunderland in League One and were on a 13-match unbeaten run before losing 1-0 at MK Dons in the second leg of their play-off semi-final – which saw them progress 2-1 on aggregate.

“It’s not going to be an easy game against Wycombe and is one where you have to win your individual battles,” added Bennett.

"It’s going to be another difficult game and you can’t go into that game being lackadaisical or underestimating Wycombe. They are a tough, hardworking team and won’t make it easy for you.

“You’ve got to stand up and be counted, expect that the balls will be coming into the box, they’ll run, they’ll chase, be in your faces so it’s how we deal with it and handle it.

“If we play to the levels we can play at and with the quality that we’ve got then hopefully we’ll be able to go on and win the game.”

While this is their fourth visit to the national stadium in four seasons, it will also be the first time many of the current Sunderland squad have played at Wembley.

“It’s a big occasion and you want to play at the highest level,” said Bennett. “You want to play at Wembley because that’s the pinnacle, playing at Wembley.

“Everybody wants to play at Wembley, internationals want to play at Wembley and unfortunately some players don’t get that opportunity to play at Wembley. It’s not something that comes around every week or even every month.

“It’s something which you look forward to and will hopefully be able to grace.”