SUNDERLAND have not done a lot wrong this season, but if Lee Johnson and his players needed a reminder about the enduring difficulty of hauling themselves out of League One, it arrived amid the chaos of the final ten minutes at Fleetwood’s Highbury Stadium on Saturday. If the Black Cats are to win promotion this season, their success will not be delivered on a plate.

Seemingly cruising to what would have been another deserved victory with the cushion of a two-goal lead, Sunderland were punished for some tactical naivety and lax late decision-making as they dropped two points and were edged off the top of the table by an in-form Wigan Athletic.

The concession of an 81st-minute goal to Callum Morton was the catalyst for their late collapse, with no one tracking the Fleetwood forward as he ghosted beyond the Black Cats’ backline to score, although the warning signs were already evident with Sunderland’s defenders having dropped back towards the edge of their own 18-yard box.

A collective sense of panic set in, resulting in a series of cheap concessions of possession and what was effectively an open invitation for Fleetwood to keep hurling the ball into the box, and having been awarded a penalty for contact in the area when Luke O’Nien was prevented from reaching a corner in the 76th minute, Sunderland duly conceded a spot-kick in almost identical fashion when Bailey Wright wrestled with his opponent in the sixth minute of stoppage time.

A furious Lee Johnson was adamant the two incidents were markedly different – video evidence that emerged in the wake of the game did not really back up his view. Wright, an experienced centre-half returning to the side to replace the suspended Tom Flanagan, should have known better.

That said, though, it was Sunderland’s general inability to see things out that was most alarming, a trait that has reappeared sporadically throughout their time in the third tier. In fairness to Johnson’s new-look side, it is the first time it has happened this season. In response, though, the head coach and his squad will have to re-examine the way in which they attempted to close out the game.

“If that’s 0-0, he’s (the referee) not giving the penalty,” said Aiden McGeady. “At that stage, it has to be a stonewall penalty for it to be given. But the way we handled the last ten minutes of the game wasn’t good enough.

“We go 2-0 up, and we think we’ll see the game out easily enough because in the last few weeks (we’ve done that). We won 2-1 last week and have managed to go on a winning run.

“I just thought the way we handled the last ten minutes of the game was really poor. We should be winning games 1-0 in this league – 2-0, 3-0. You don’t want to be having to go into every game having to score three goals to win a game. It’s not conducive to trying to get promoted, is it?”

McGeady’s honesty is commendable, and suggests there will not be an attempt to gloss over Sunderland’s failings. This is a young, evolving squad, and if they can learn lessons from Saturday’s late setback, it will have been a valuable part of their development.

It would also be a shame if the failings of the final ten minutes completely overshadowed the positive elements of the Wearsiders’ play that had been on display for the vast majority of the game.

Ross Stewart led the line superbly once again, opening the scoring with a deft glanced header that resulted in his fifth goal of the season and repeatedly pulling Fleetwood’s defenders out of position with his intelligent running.

Dan Neil and Elliot Embleton were the shining lights in midfield for most of the afternoon, and having looked shaky on his debut against Accrington seven days earlier, Thorben Hoffman performed superbly in goal.

The 22-year-old German produced a brilliant double save in the first half moments before Stewart scored, and also kept out Morton’s goal-bound header in the 90th minute with a sharp reflex stop.

His command of his area under considerable pressure from Fleetwood's physical forwards and distribution with the ball at his feet were also impressive.

“I thought he (Hoffman) was very good,” said Johnson. “Both with his feet in terms of picking out the spare player and also with two or three big saves and two or three big contacts from crosses.

“The lad here throws it an absolute mile, and it’s worth 12 or 15 box entries to them. We had to defend it like we did, but in the end, we’ve just fallen short by 30 seconds and a bad decision.

“You’ve got to be aware that you can give up a goal every game from bad refereeing decisions. That was the message at half-time and at the end of the game.

“It’s difficult to take, but the first goal we conceded was a poor one, from our perspective. We had a couple of warnings with those in-to-out runs they’d made, but we left a slot and they capitalised. That one was really disappointing because, at that point, we’d probably demoralised them enough to go and have control.”