In the aftermath of our play-off heartbreak, Tony Mowbray gave an assessment of Sunderland's performance and praised Luton Town.
PRIDE
"We'll get stronger and we'll be back next season. First and foremost, we have to talk about the team, and how proud I am of these young lads who week-in, week-out, have given everything they've got."
NEXT SEASON
"We've got some pretty good footballers, and we've won plenty of games this year. I do think the league will be stronger next season. Never mind the teams coming down from the Premier League, the teams coming up from League One are strong, with big crowds. We have to keep building and growing, and we have to get better and find a way to keep our players more available to play the football matches for us."
RIGHT DIRECTION
"I think we've been saying that we're going in the right direction. We came out of League One, and maybe consolidation might have been what the club was thinking about. And yet the team has punched above their weight with that, with the backing of the people who come to the away games and come to the Stadium of Light and watch us every week. We've managed to punch above mediocrity. We've gone close, but unfortunately, we just fell short."
PHYSICALITY
"We're all disappointed. We knew what was coming. It was a physical confrontation, really. They were very direct. We knew that was happening, and they scored from set-plays. There was always the potential for that, it happened on Saturday [in the first leg]. It was frustrating we couldn't score last night."
INJURY CRISIS
"We feel as though we're always going to score a goal, even without our main striker [the injured Ross Stewart], so we're frustrated. We are without some major attributes and assets that this football team has got at their disposal, but they're not there at the moment because of the injury situation at the club. There's potentially eight players who might have started last night [who were] unavailable, and they're mainly 6ft-plus players who would have seen off their physical threat. With total respect to Luton, I'm not sure there's a lot else that we would have had to deal with."
LEARNING CURVE
"It's football. We have to accept it, and we wish them well. I had a 19-year football career [as a player] and you have good days and you have bad days. You have days where you have to learn from, and hopefully there's not too many of them for this group."
LUTON
"They played with huge intensity on a tight pitch, in a tight environment and with a crowd that was fully behind their team. It's hard to get them off your back. They get the ball as far away from their goal as they can, and if you're going to try to pass through it, you have to be good at doing that. They played with a real intensity, and you give them credit for that. That's how I saw the game really. Their intensity was high and they won a lot of duels in midfield."
TRIED TO COMPETE
"We knew we had to compete, and we tried to compete, but they're a big, strong physical team, with some big lads who are athletic, and tonight that was enough to get them through. Other nights it wouldn't be."
