Phil Parkinson reacts to devastating late Gillingham goal and criticises his Sunderland side's defending

The Black Cats were on the brink of going to within one point of Rotherham United in second position when Mikael Mandron scored a crucial goal with just seconds to play.

The former Sunderland youngster had already brought his side level int he game once, after Parkinson’s side failed to deal with a routine long throw into the box.

Parkinson had warned his side of that particular threat in the build-up to the game and was immensely frustrated to see his concerns realised.

“It hurts,” he said.

“It's a game I felt we were comfortable in really but as I said prior to the game, against Gillingham you have got to defend the set plays and the long throws, and then you've got to go and play.

“I thought for the majority of the game we did that.

“Two moments proved costly, and for the first one we've got to head the ball out from the middle of the goal.

“The second, we've got to show more desire, to win the first one and then to block the shot.”

“If we do that, we're sat talking about three points.

“Any level of football. you've got to win headers and shwo that desire whether it's the first minute or the 96th,” he added.

“In the main we handled their physical threat OK but it's not OK to do that for 90% of the time, it has got to be 100.

“It's proved costly for us.

“If it's an amazing goal or bit of magic, you can sometimes say, OK.

“But today, in both situations, we could have done a lot better.”

Parkinson admitted that he had been surprised with the referee’s decision to play six minutes of stoppage time, but was in no mood to be critical as he reflected on the game, insisting that the onus was on his team to see the contest through.

“I was surprised, I thought it was going to be four minutes,” he said.

“But that’s by-the-by, I should be sat here talking about three points if we defend the long throw better.”

Results elsewhere have again kept Sunderland’s automatic promotion hopes very much alive.

Portsmouth were beaten by Peterborough United and Rotherham United fell to a shock 3-1 defeat at Rochdale.

On a remarkable afternoon, the big winners were Oxford United, who came back from 2-0 down at Shrewsbury to win and surge into third.

“Just one point now separates third from eighth in what is turning into a truly remarkable race for the top-two positions,” he said.

“You look at it when you come off, and think, well other results haven’t been too bad, that’s good, but then, if we get the extra two points….

“It’s difficult after a game to be upbeat because we’ve thrown away two points after a lot of good play.

“We passed it really well against a very robust team, but at the moment we’re flat.

“We’ve got to pick ourselves for up for Tuesday and we will.”