Mike Dodds insists Sunderland can still gatecrash the top six despite a 1-0 defeat to a ‘unique’ Norwich City at Carrow Road.

The Black Cats will need a repeat of last season’s surge under former boss Tony Mowbray to sneak into the play-offs, after falling nine points behind the chasing pack now headed by the Canaries, who moved within a point of sixth-placed Hull.

Dodds is in charge until the end of the season for his third stint at the helm on Wearside, after the departures of Mowbray and more recently Michael Beale.

The Black Cats’ chief felt it was a game of fine margins decided by Josh Sargent’s close range finish.

“Norwich is a really good team and they are in a really good spot. Particularly at home and I felt for large spells we nullified their threats,” he said. “The way they play is quite unique to the league. They drop a midfielder in between the centre backs and the two full backs are really aggressive and get really high.

"I felt we had to pick our moments when we could be more aggressive. They overload the middle of the pitch with the wide players, who roll inside, so I felt in this game we had to be solid in that area.

"I'm not going to sit here and spin positives because we've lost the game and that's the most important bit, but the pleasing bit for me was that we got into the right areas.

"The next stage of that is putting the ball in the back of the net, and that hasn't been easy for us all season if we're completely honest. I think you've got to give Norwich credit because they defended their box well but at the moment I think we're just a bit erratic, a little bit tense maybe in those areas.

"But I've got full faith in the players and the way they work, their desire to improve gives me a lot of faith that we're close to turning a corner."

Sunderland now have a difficult double header coming up against promotion-chasing Leicester and Southampton.

"I can't remember exactly where we were this time last year but I can't imagine it's a million miles apart,” he said. “What we did last year was go on an unbelievable run to take it to the last game. The mindset of the players is that they want to win every single game and it has to be that way at a club of this size.

"The play-offs are still very much in my mind, I appreciate at the moment we're in a bit of a spot - I can't shy away from that and I know we've got two difficult games coming up, but I take a lot of faith from watching the players work. I don't see a group that has given up on that."