THE more things change, the more they stay the same. Two months after watching his Sunderland team lose to Charlton Athletic in the play-off final, Jack Ross named just one outfield starter from Wembley in his side to kick off the new League One season.

Yet while the faces were different, the outcome remained depressingly unaltered. Most of the failings that resulted in Sunderland having to negotiate the play-offs last season were in evidence once again as they started the new campaign.

Avoidable defensive error? Tick. A lack of precision and creativity in the final third? Tick. Strikers either isolated from the attacking midfielders or incapable of making their presence felt in the box? Tick. A 1-1 home draw? Two ticks just for good measure.

Prior to Saturday, Jack Ross had urged his players to shake off their tag as League One’s draw specialists. Last term, their tally of 19 draws from 46 league matches was the highest in the division by a distance, and eight of their 23 home games finished 1-1. Those eight matches resulted in 16 points being dropped – had even half of those points been secured, Sunderland would have claimed automatic promotion.

It was a chronic failing, but it is not one that has disappeared. One game into the new campaign, and the Black Cats have already squandered two points thanks to yet another 1-1 draw. In that respect at least, they are certainly up and running.

“I think, results wise, we can’t be satisfied with drawing at home because we know the consequences of doing that too often last season,” admitted Ross. “We need to ensure we aim to win games. That was the aim, but not the end result.”

It certainly wasn’t, and while the opening game of a new season is hardly the time to be drawing any knee-jerk conclusions, Ross will have to quickly prove he is part of the solution rather than the problem if he is to avoid some difficult questions about his future job prospects in the next few weeks.

Last summer’s chaos meant he was afforded a fair degree of leeway as Sunderland missed out on the top two last term, but there will be much less tolerance this time around with Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven adamant that automatic promotion is the sole ambition over the next nine months.

Yes, there has been upheaval again this summer, with Bryan Oviedo, Lee Cattermole and George Honeyman all leaving in an attempt to start balancing the books, but there have been some high-profile additions too and Sunderland continue to run by far the biggest wage bill in the division. At some stage, that has to start translating into results otherwise the patience displayed by Donald and Methven in the wake of last season’s Wembley disappointment will quickly expire.

There is still plenty of time for things to turn of course, and for all that Saturday’s opener ended in a bitter disappointment, there were still some positives to cling to. Ross’ new defensive formation functioned relatively efficiently, with Oxford’s opening goal a result of an error from debutant Conor McLaughlin rather than a systemic failing.

Sunderland’s wing-backs got forward as promised, especially in the first half, only for a series of poor deliveries to let them down. That is an issue in terms of personnel – are Denver Hume and Lynden Gooch suited to a wing-back role that places a high degree of emphasis on the quality of their balls into the box? – but it also suggests Ross is capable of fashioning a team that poses a threat down the flanks.

The final third remains an issue, with Will Grigg once again failing to impress as his uninspired performances from last season carried over into the new campaign. This time around, however, the Northern Irishman cannot fall back on the excuse of having a niggling injury issue to contend with.

Marc McNulty was energetic enough as he made his senior debut following a summer move from Reading, although it remains to be seen whether he is better as a central striker or as a wider forward. Similarly, while Elliot Embleton showed flashes of technical ability playing in an attacking-midfield role, the 20-year-old is still to fully convince that he is capable of running a game at this level.

Aiden McGeady can, but the Irishman’s injury problems continue to restrict his involvement. The same is true of his fellow substitutes, Duncan Watmore and Chris Maguire, so while Sunderland would unquestionably be a much more threatening proposition with all three players in the starting line-up, it is far from a given that that will be possible on too many occasions.

Ross still has to prove he can come up with the right attacking mix, but as he reflected on Saturday’s failings, the Black Cats boss was keen to turn the spotlight on the other end of the field.

Had George Dobson not played McLaughlin into trouble, and had the defender’s heavy first touch not enabled Ben Woodburn to seize possession and set up Tariqe Fosu for Oxford’s 14th-minute opener, perhaps the visitors would not have been able to time-waste their way through the rest of the game?

“We feel we have attributes we didn’t have last season, but the thing is clean sheets,” said Ross. “There is a real myth about last season. On average you need to score 75 or 76 goals to get out of this league and we scored 80. So, it frustrates me (when people complain about a lack of attacking threat), because the actual truth is we needed to keep more clean sheets, especially here.

“If we’d done that, we would have turned draws into wins and this is another example of that. We don’t want that to cost us, but we can’t keep having hard luck stories and I can’t keep repeating the same message. There is an understanding in the squad that is what we need to do.”

There is some merit to Ross’ argument, but it ignores the fact that Oxford were every bit as threatening as Sunderland for the majority of Saturday’s game. On another day, Rob Dickie’s header might have stood despite the block on Jon McLaughlin that resulted in referee Peter Wright ruling it out, and while there was contact on both player and ball as Josh Ruffles slid in on Gooch at the start of the second half, a different official might not have awarded a spot-kick.

Gooch converted his penalty with aplomb, but despite the presence of plenty of attacking players in the final 40 minutes, Sunderland rarely looked like fashioning a winner.