Sunderland will be looking to moving into the automatic places over the festive period.
Micky Gray believes Sunderland’s discipline ‘problems’ this season are ‘hurting’ the team as they aim to earn promotion from League One.
Jack Ross’ side suffered a damaging defeat against leaders Portsmouth over the weekend, with Glenn Loovrens seeing red in the second half as the home side recorded a crucial 3-1 win.
According to Transfermarkt, the Black Cats have the worst discipline record in the third tier of English football as they have picked up five red cards during this campaign – no other team has been issued more than two.
Added with that, Ross’ side have been shown the yellow card on 38 occasions – Doncaster Rovers have the worst record on that front, their players have been shown a mammoth 57 yellow cards from 23 matches.
Nonetheless, Sunderland legend Gray explained why Sunderland need to improve their discipline record because it is already a difficult job coming up against the top teams in the division.
“It was disappointing because Loovrens got himself sent off,” Gray told Drivetime on talkSPORT on 24/12/2018 at 5:40 pm.
“That’s one of our problems this season. We have been getting too many players sent off. And it’s really hurting the team because when you are going up against the side who are top of the table, you really want to put a show on.”
At this moment in time, Ross’ side are sitting third in the League One table, four points behind second-placed Luton Town and eight points behind leaders Portsmouth – but they do have two games in hand on their rivals.
On Boxing Day, the north-east club will host relegation-threatened Bradford City at the Stadium of Light, with over 45,000 tickets sold, according to the club’s official Twitter account.
To round off the year, Sunderland will then host Shrewsbury Town on home soil and if they can pick up maximum points from those games then they could potentially end up in the automatic places.
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