Sunderland could only draw 1-1 with Portsmouth on Saturday.
Sunderland’s hopes of automatic promotion have all but gone after only managing to draw at home to Portsmouth on Saturday afternoon.
The Black Cats needed to win to keep up their pursuit of second place, but recorded a 19th league draw of the season – the most in League One.
Sunderland had taken the lead at the Stadium of Light as Tom Flanagan put the Black Cats in front, only for Jamal Lowe to equalise for Pompey.
The game ended in a 1-1 draw, but was somewhat marred as a smoke bomb was thrown into the Sunderland fans, and played scrapped at full time with tensions boiling over.
With Barnsley coming from behind to beat Blackpool, Sunderland are now six points off automatic promotion with two games to go, meaning it will take a miracle for them to break into the top two.
Fans have been left disappointed that Sunderland will only be in the playoffs, and that has come even after splashing the cash on Will Grigg, with the idea of him firing Sunderland into the Championship.
Grigg has scored just four times in 16 games for Sunderland, and fired another blank on Saturday, though he did hit the post after coming on as a second half substitute.
Sunderland fans have been taking to Twitter to criticise Grigg, feeling that he’s a waste of money and should be sent back to Wigan Athletic, with others slating spending so much on a striker only to bench him, adding that he’s been a shambles of a signing, does nothing and should be dropped for Kazaiah Sterling.
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