Sunderland qualify for Championship play-offs

The latest North East sport headlines, from Daniel Wales.

Transcript

00:00Sunderland's goalless draw with Norwich City in midweek in the Championship confirmed their

00:06qualification for this season's play-offs at the end of the season. Sunderland now cannot

00:11drop below 6th place in the Championship and are on course to finish in 4th place. Regis

00:17Labrie spoke about that as well as a potential injury to Joe Bellingham which kept him out

00:23of the game against Norwich at Carrow Road on Tuesday evening.

00:30After the international break I think the purpose was really clear and we want to build a strong

00:37momentum for the last stage of the season and we don't have to waste time so I think we had three

00:44good opportunities to win, one draw away at Norwich which is a good result I think and we are building

00:52this team spirit to be competitive until the end. It's not a serious injury and I think it was a good

01:01opportunity for him to refresh even if I know that he wants to play every minute I think it's fair to

01:08say that we need to rotate a little bit the squad. And finally Middlesbrough head coach Michael Carrick

01:14has made clear that his side are looking to bounce back quickly from their loss in midweek at home to

01:20Leeds United which saw them slip out of the playoff places.

01:23Yeah I thought we created pressure and really well through the second half especially and

01:29caused them problems you know with some of the build-up, some of the attacking play and

01:34yeah I just couldn't quite find that moment. We had opportunities and the goal looked like it was

01:38there for us to take and then we just didn't quite take it so it's disappointing, it's a setback.

01:45These are the games at some point you can lose because they're a good team and moments can change

01:51games but I think it's something for us to learn from you know there's going to be tight games between

01:55now and the end of the season and hopefully beyond that that we can we can learn from this experience

02:00and use to our advantage when the next one comes. There's going to be there's all sorts of results

02:05around at the minute and it's about keeping a level head, keep believing and keep doing the right

02:09things like we did for the most part tonight. Obviously another big challenge on Saturday.