Asked whether he would have been happy to take a point from the Stadium of Light in a second v third encounter, Sonny said: "No, not really. Not the way we play and how confident we were. We wanted three points.

"Now, looking back, how the game panned out, I think yes, we probably do take the point now. But we think we are better than them, so we wanted the three points.

"That's just our attitudes, that's the way we wanted to play and I think we imposed ourselves on the game today.

"We could have easily come here today and with everything, the way the week's gone, could have gone into our shell a little bit, but no.

"Look, Mick's got us going this week. Straightaway, from the first whistle, we've tried to play football. We've created some really good chances and I think we were unlcuky not to be two or three-one up at half-time."

On the 3,000-plus fans who travelled to the north-east, Sonny had this to say: "Absolutely outstanding. I've never been here before and I didn't know where they were going to be, so when we came out for the warm-up I was looking around thinking 'Where's our lot?'

"Then I looked up and could see them all up there, and from the first whistle you could certainly hear them. They made themselves heard. You knew they were here straight away.

"They've been absolutely brilliant. They've travelled well all season and they deserve that point today. I'd have been bitterly disappointed for them to come all this way and to go away with nothing today, especially when we were the better team.

"They've just got to stick with us. Whatever's happened this week, you can guarantee one thing and that's the fans will be exactly the same.

"They'll back us all the way and we'll need that for the rest of the season, so just keep doing what we're doing, we back ourselves and I don't see any reason why we can't go up."