Jack Ross reflects on Coventry City draw and explains why he is 'proud' of Sunderland players

It was a frustrating afternoon for the Black Cats, who saw Lee Cattermole's goal cancelled out and suffered a number of injury blows.

An injury to Lynden Gooch meant that they essentially finished the game with ten men.

"We are disappointed every time we don't win because it comes with the expectation of managing the club," Ross said.

"It is not a bad thing, it is just part of the challenge. I am at pains to the players that they should be proud of themselves in terms of what they had to go through.

"It was a tough game away from home. If we can produce what we did last week at home and then be resilient as away form home then we will be okay.

"That will get us pretty close to where we want to be. It is finding that consistency. There is a lot to be proud about."

Ross said that the outstanding Sunderland travelling support is creating an intensity to the home players and believes his team are getting better and better at dealing with that threat.

"I keep saying about the intensity around every game we play and you see that again today," Ross said.

"Because of that outstanding following, it can galvanise home teams and every game has a cup tie feel to it.

"We are getting better at dealing with that. We are becoming more resilient. Those periods we are coming under pressure, and the circumstances with the injuries today, it is another show of the character in the group.

"We spoke about it at half time, we had two long periods in the first half when we had two or three concentrated periods of pressure but aside from that the game was quite bitty, Coventry had more territory, but we didn't look in trouble in terms of conceding," he added.

"The difference was we were in the game, then the flip side when you go ahead you look to build on that.

"It was a really well earned point in terms of the difficulty of the game."