Sunderland, Coventry and Sheff Wed's chances of promotion via the play-offs assessed by stats experts

Sunderland’s hopes of securing automatic promotion were delivered a blow by Preston North End on a quite frankly bizarre night at the Stadium of Light.

Emil Riis put the visitors in front midway through the second-half and that looked set to help Paul Heckingbottom’s side all three points upon their manager’s return to Wearside. Some ‘unique’ attempts at time-wasting looked to have helped them on their way to a win - but Sunderland hit back in the closing stages and snatched the point they deserved with a fine strike from substitute Romaine Mundle inside the final five minutes.

Black Cats head Regis Le Bris delivered a mixed verdict of his side’s performance as he bemoaned the lack of control they imposed on the game - but was left satisfied by the ‘good reaction’ they showed in their attempts to secure a point.

He told The Echo: "We had four or five chances to score and in this kind of game, against an opponent this type of game, it's very important to score because we can kill the game rather than keeping them alive. At the same time, we should have had a better control of the game. We struggled a little bit with their direct play, it's not easy to press and you can feel that they will play long.

“Our block was sometimes a little bit open and we had to manage this. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't and they were able to keep the ball close to our box and create chances from nothing, just from direct play. So at the end of the day, it was a good reaction. It was a brilliant goal from Romaine. He needed minutes to recover his best sharpness and his goal was absolutely brilliant. Hopefully he can go on to score some more. It's one more point in the race. This league is long with different set ups, different experiences, and for now we just have to keep going."

Le Bris will hope his side can continue to push for that long-awaited return to the Premier League over the coming weeks as they face some challenging fixtures against the likes of Coventry City, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City. Automatic promotion is not yet out of their grasp but a play-off place can be secured over the next fortnight and that would keep alive those dreams of visiting the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City once again next season.

With just under two months remaining, we take a look at how the stats experts at Opta are predicting the play-off chase could play out between now and the end of the season.

What are Sunderland’s chances of claiming promotion via the Championship play-offs?

Portsmouth - 0.08% Preston North End - 0.12% Swansea City - 0.14% Millwall - 1.34% Norwich City - 2.92% Watford - 3.84% Leeds United - 7.46% Sheffield Wednesday - 8.42% Blackburn Rovers - 17.14% Middlesbrough - 19.38% Bristol City - 24.30% Sheffield United - 40.14% Burnley - 53.40% Coventry City - 54.22% West Bromwich Albion - 68.10% Sunderland - 99.0%

Queens Park Rangers, Hull City, Oxford United, Stoke City, Cardiff City, Derby County, Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle - all 0.00%

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