High standards have to be demanded if Sunderland are to blow Doncaster Rovers away like they did Lincoln City and Wycombe Wanderers

Every time Sunderland play at home, they will be favourites against any team in this league so they have to make the Stadium of Light a fortress, a place where teams hate to play and opposition players are thinking of damage limitation before anything else.

Sunderland are still a big scalp in this league but in the previous two home games they have blown the opposition away early on, playing exciting, high tempo football and that is what I expect Phil Parkinson and his coaching staff will be expecting and demanding from his players against Doncaster.

That must be the standard Sunderland set themselves now.

None of this ‘Well, a point is better than losing’ - No, a point at home in League One means two points dropped every single time it happens.

High standards, both individually and as a team, have to be expected - never switching off, always being relentless in grinding down the opposition is the only way Sunderland can get back to where they should be and that is what they did in the last two home games so they have proved they can do it.

Now it is a case of being at your best as often as you can, doing it consistently is the hard bit because we found out last season that too many draws, especially at home, cost Sunderland promotion.

Getting an early goal, like Sunderland have done, in their previous two home games, has taken all of the pressure off but that won’t happen every game, being 3-0 up before the half hour mark and the game over won’t happen every time either, so if that doesn’t happen then Sunderland will just have to dig deep and do it the hard way and I am expecting Doncaster to be far more resilient than Lincoln or Wycombe were.

They have got a better goals against record than Lincoln and Wycombe, so it maybe a different type of game but there is more than one way to win a football match and as long as Sunderland find one of those ways, we will all be happy.

Doncaster are no mugs and cannot be underestimated, but Sunderland are flying now and destroyed the team who were top of the table in their last home game and that should give them all the belief they need.