REGIS LE BRIS conceded his Sunderland side were fortunate to take anything from their home draw with Plymouth Argyle, even though they were leading when the game entered the 90th minute.

The Black Cats were a long way off their best as they toiled against the Championship’s bottom club, and fell behind when Anthony Patterson deflected Ryan Hardie’s cross into his own net.

Goals from Wilson Isidor and Trai Hume looked like securing all three points, only for some slack defending to allow Plymouth substitute Nathaniel Ogbeta to fire home in the 90th minute.

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It is not the first time Sunderland have conceded a costly late goal this season – they also allowed Plymouth to score in the 90th minute as they lost 3-2 at Home Park in September – but on this occasion, Le Bris admitted his side were fortunate to take anything at all given how poorly they played.

“In the end, I think we were a bit lucky to win a single point,” said the Sunderland boss. “I think we started well because the first half was okay. Not impressive, but we were faced with a very compact low block and we found some solutions. We didn’t create many chances, so we talked at half-time how we could create more.

“But during the second half, I think we made many mistakes. We opened our shape, and they found solutions to create chances and scored. We came back into the game, but towards the end, they were more direct and we didn’t manage the end of the game properly.”

With Sheffield United having lost to Hull City on Friday night, Sunderland would have moved to within a point of the top two had they won, but Le Bris insists it is too early to worry about what anyone else in doing in the race for promotion.

He said: “I don’t really think about what anyone else is doing. We will see where we are at the end of the season, it is not about what happens in a single round of games.

“Every team has its own pathway and its own journey – for us, Plymouth have proved to be difficult for us because we lost away so we have only taken one point from the two games.

“At the same time, though, it is a question of learning. You can struggle – every team will have a bad period – so it is then a question of how you react. How do you feed from this experience? We will see during the next week before the Middlesbrough game.”