Tony Mowbray makes key Championship prediction as crucial Sunderland summer begins

Tony Mowbray has praised his Sunderland squad for making it to the play-off semi final despite a lengthy injury list, but has warned that the club must strengthen this further ahead of what he anticipates being an even stronger Championship field next season.

Sunderland's excellent form in the closing weeks of the season left them with a shot of landing back-to-back promotions, despite the loss of their centre forward and almost all of their centre halves.

Mowbray also pointed to the loss of Corry Evans, the club captain and the only experienced holding midfielder in the squad, as a key hurdle that his players have had to battle through.

In the end Sunderland's extensive injury list caught up with them, with Luton Town scoring three goals from set pieces across the two legs to advance to next Saturday's final at Wembley.

Mowbray said it was important to recognise

“We never talk about Corry Evans, but he’s a leader of men who plays centre-midfield, but who hasn’t been there for months and months," Mowbray said.

"Never mind the centre-forward that scores all the goals or the three centre-halves that are six foot four that have been unavailable.

"We can talk about them – people like Corry Evans are massive losses to this football team, with these young lads. They’ve performed really well and I’m proud of them, proud of the fans, proud of the city and I think we should all recognise what this group of players have done. But the club have to build. We have to recruit well, strengthen and give ourselves a chance to do it again next year and keep the club with a forward momentum."

Mowbray wants to repeat Sunderland's superb campaign next time around but made reference to a host of teams that he expects to be competing at the top end of the table.

The head coach says Sunderland cannot stand still if they are to to keep moving closer to the Premier League.

“Of course the club has to build now and they have to keep their best players," Mowbray said.

"We have to keep growing. That’s football. We have to keep building and improving if we want to be a force. I can reel off a list of the teams that are going to be hoping to win promotion from the Championship next season – Southampton are going to be massively strong, and then if it’s Leicester, Leeds or Everton, what about them? You’ve got Ipswich Town coming the other way, a club I know really well with 30,000 fans coming every week and a good coach and good players.

"Then you’ve got West Brom, Norwich City and whoever doesn’t go up out of Luton, Middlesbrough or Coventry. It’s a really tough league, and we’ve done incredibly well to be in and around and above some of those teams this season. We need to keep getting better to do it again."

Sunderland will also have to provide mowbray with clarity over his own future, after he made reference to reports in recent weeks that his positions is being assessed in his post-match press conference.