'We didn't kill them off': Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray's assessment of New Year's Day draw against Blackpool

The Seasiders, who are now without a win in their last nine games, delivered a much-improved first-half display to lead 1-0 at the break thanks to Shayne Lavery’s coolly-taken strike.

But the Black Cats responded well in the second-half, equalising through Ross Stewart before squandering good chances to win it.

Mowbray felt his side let Blackpool off the hook as they failed to make it three wins in a row.

“After a pretty tepid start, for the first 20 minutes we didn’t really get out of the blocks, I thought we dominated for the last hour of the football match,” he told Sunderland’s official website.

“We’re all disappointed in the dressing room that we didn’t get all three points because we had the opportunities, the chances, getting into the positions to score but the final cross, the final cutback or the final cross was a little bit too heavy.

“We didn’t kill them off but they worked really hard. They’re a good, honest and hard-working Championship team but I felt we had some really high quality moments in the game that should have been enough to win the game.

“We have to take a point and move on, but to take seven points over the Christmas and New Year period is okay.

“The players deserve huge credit but there’s disappointment in there we didn’t get the three points we felt we deserve on the balance of play.”