Phil Parkinson reflects on Sunderland's league position and system change after Doncaster draw

Phil Parkinson defended his Sunderland side as they slipped to eighth in the League One table.
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The Black Cats were within seconds of climbing to fourth, before Fejiri Okenabirhie’s late goal rescued a point for Doncaster Rovers.

Sunderland remain just three points off the automatic promotion places, where Peterborough United have played one game more.

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The Black Cats, though, are now winless in four games across all competitions and have dropped below the two-points-per-game ration that is seen as key to securing promotion over the course of a season.

Fejiri Okenabirhie rescues a point for Doncaster RoversFejiri Okenabirhie rescues a point for Doncaster Rovers
Fejiri Okenabirhie rescues a point for Doncaster Rovers

"The away form is good,” Parkinson said.

“We're unbeaten on our travels which is a great return for us.

“But look, today we should be talking about three points and being off and running again.

“It's funny, sometimes when you have a bit of a dip, as we've had through the cup game and with last Saturday's defeat, things do go against you.

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“But like I've always said, you've got to focus on performance levels like today and we'll come through the other side of it, because we're a good team.

“The quality level of our performance through our ninety minutes was good today.

“It was a lot better, there were periods last week where we played well but we were a bit loose in possession, and gave the opposition a lift.

“Today was a lot better.”

Parkinson also said that he was encouraged by the results of his return to a 3-4-3 system that he played for most of the second half of last season.

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It had been at the Keepmoat Stadium in December last year that the system had begun to produce results, with Lynden Gooch, Charlie Wyke and Chris Maguire forming an effective front three.

Parkinson has opted to try and play with a second striker for much of this campaign, but recent results led to a reset.

The Black Cats were aided in that sense by the return of Tom Flanagan and Conor McLaughlin from international duty, with the latter in particular producing a strong performance on the right of the back three.

“They're both good users of the ball, which is so important to the system we play,” Parkinson said.

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“We had good control of the game, I thought Grant and Josh were great in the middle of the pitch.

“We moved it quickly, and we've got Chris and Goochy in those little pockets, I thought we caused a lot of problems.

“We looked at it early in the week, what teams had done against it and how teams had looked to make things difficult for us.

“We wanted to go back to the [3-4-3] shape for various reasons.

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“There's just certain elements of the system that makes it difficult for the opposition back four.

“We gave them a lot of problems and I was pleased with that.

“We've got to have the ability to change and adapt the system as we go along, as teams look to make it difficult, but I thought Doncaster found it hard to do that to us today.”

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