Sunderland have become bogged down in League One

Grigg, like Sunderland, is supposed to be better than League One. Yet just as he struggles to elevate himself above the morass of life in the third tier, so the club he represents has also become bogged down.

Almost 20 months since relegation from the Championship was confirmed, this is not how it was meant to be.

Taken in isolation, Tuesday night’s events at Oxford’s Kassam Stadium were hardly disastrous.

The Carabao Cup has been a pleasant distraction this season, serving up victories over Burnley and Sheffield United, but it is hardly the priority.

Sunderland created plenty of chances as they hit the woodwork twice and displayed commendable spirit to haul themselves back into the game after falling behind. Had two of their most experienced players held their nerve from the penalty spot, they would have won.

Tom Flanagan is tackled during Sunderland's Carabao Cup defeat at Oxford

Ultimately, they lost though, and for all the talk of decent performances and refereeing errors, that is becoming a disturbing pattern. Sunderland also lost at Lincoln City in what proved to be Jack Ross’ final game. They lost at Wycombe Wanderers in Phil Parkinson’s first match in charge, and again at Shrewsbury Town last weekend. While Parkinson might want to describe Tuesday’s game as a draw, they have also now lost at Oxford.

There is an acceptance that Sunderland have no divine right to win matches in League One, but that should not mean there is also an acceptance that results like the sequence that has been strung together in October are acceptable. The Black Cats did not experience as poor a run last season, yet still came up short in the battle for automatic promotion. Parkinson needs time to embed his ideas and properly get to grips with a squad that lacks pace, energy and balance, but in terms of the fight for a top-two spot, it is already running out.

“It’s fine margins,” argued George Dobson, who is one of five Sunderland players to have hit the woodwork in the last two matches. “If you look at the game on Saturday, we hit the post three times, we hit the bar. If they’re a yard either side, then you could win the game four or five-nil.

“We had plenty of chances in the second half (at Oxford) to win the game. It’s just turning those performances into results. You’d rather play badly and win. But the positive signs are there, the performances are there and if we keep plugging away then I’m sure the results will turn a lot more positive.

“We’ve got tremendous players who can score a lot of goals, as you saw against Tranmere, so it will click. It’s very close to clicking and I’m sure Saturday, hopefully, we can kick-start putting a run together.”

Southend United are the visitors to the Stadium of Light at the weekend, and as he watched Tuesday’s events from his seat in the press box at the Kassam Stadium, the Shrimpers’ new manager, Sol Campbell, will have been plotting how to inflict yet more misery on a Black Cats side that has been in a state of flux from the moment the season began.

There are so many questions for Parkinson to address, many of which flummoxed his predecessor, Jack Ross. Should Sunderland play with five at the back or a flat back four? How can you get some pace and movement into a midfield that can be pedestrian and predictable? Who is the best bet as a central striker, and given Tuesday night’s penalty misses, can they be relied upon to start scoring goals?

A degree of uncertainty is inevitable when a new manager takes over, but almost a year-and-a-half on from their demotion to League One, it still feels as if Sunderland are feeling their way into their new surrounds. In many respects, they are now ‘just another League One club’. Yet in so many others, they continue to look like a fish out of water, struggling to come to terms with the reality of the situation they find themselves in.

“Listen, the last two games we have dominated, so we’ve got to keep believing in ourselves,” said Parkinson. “We’ve got to keep believing, doing the right things and when we get the chances, back ourselves. Some of the ones we’ve had have been clear-cut, and we need to do better.”