Phil Parkinson fires League One promotion warning to Sunderland's rivals after Coventry City loss

Sunderland are now four points off the League One automatic promotion places - but Phil Parkinson insists his squad will come back fighting after a disappointing week.
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The Black Cats dropped two points at home to Fleetwood Town on Tuesday followed by the 1-0 defeat to Coventry City, another poor start costing them key points in the promotion battle.

The weekend results leaves Parkinson’s side fifth on 58 points, four adrift of Rotherham United and six behind Coventry, who also have a game in hand.

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Parkinson wasn’t too downbeat and believes his players have what it takes to claw their way back into the race for the automatic promotion places.

Sunderland midfielder George Dobson.Sunderland midfielder George Dobson.
Sunderland midfielder George Dobson.

He said: “We’re still in the mix. We have to dust ourselves down after this, which we will do. We’ll get ready to go again on Saturday.

“The lads are disappointed, and so are the staff, but that’s football. You get knocked back and you’ve got to some back again fighting. That’s what we’ll do.

“We'd have taken this position around the Christmas period. As much as we're disappointed with this, there's plenty to play for and we need to be ready for the last 10 games - and I'm sure we will be.”

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He added: “We’ve been keeping clean sheets because we’ve been dominating games in terms of possession and getting teams on the back foot.

“That’s the reason we’ve been a hard team to score against. The reason we didn’t create enough was just that bit of quality when it was really needed, and a touch of class in and around the box.

“We didn’t do that enough to create the chances you need to win games of football.”

Parkinson said he will look at the reasons behind two slow starts this week.

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He added: “Obviously we will look at it, but it's just frustrating when it happens in back-to-back games.

“On Tuesday we knew Fleetwood were going to be a team who sat back and stifled the game, they do that whatever the score is - that's how they play. It was a perfect scenario for them.

“Today, in such a tight game, we've given them a huge lift. We'll have a look at the manner of the goals we conceded and sit down with the lads and talk about them.”

The game had just about everything in terms of the weather, wind, rain, sleet, sunshine and it was a frantic game at times, lacking in quality.

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Parkinson added: “It's a frantic game, it was windy, the pitch was a bit bobbly and it's one of those games where there was a lot at stake, and you could sense that.

“It was always going to be tight and they've come up on the right side after a moment of lack of communication for us between a few players in the middle of the pitch.

“Defensively, their positions weren't quite right - Alim and Flanno have both gone for the ball and perhaps Denver could have got round a bit quicker.

“Those margins are so important and like I said, we need to look at that and go again next weekend.”