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Max Power has never played for a club the size of Sunderland, but he knows what it takes to win League One – and the midfielder has told his team-mates to keep calm and focus on the positives after more dropped points on Saturday.

The Black Cats were held to a 1-1 draw at relegation-threatened Oxford United, their fifth in seven league games. With Portsmouth also drawing, they missed the chance to move up from fourth in League One, and leaders Luton Town’s fifth straight win means they can no longer claim the league’s equal-best points-per-game ratio – the figure manager Jack Ross holds most store by.

But cash in on their games in hand and Sunderland will still be in the automatic promotion places. Four matches out of the next five are at the Stadium of Light, where they are unbeaten in the league.

“I’ve been in these situations before with Wigan and there is a different pressure with Sunderland, purely on fanbase,” said Power, a League One champion in two of the last three seasons.

“I get the edginess, it’s been a tough few years and everyone is desperate to get promoted this year. We’re all fighting for that and we’ll dust ourselves down and go again to get the three points on Tuesday (when Blackpool visit the Stadium of Light).

“Playing for Sunderland, especially in this division, you’re expected to win every game so for me, there’s no added pressure.

“There’s no point looking at results of other teams. All we have to focus on is ourselves and if we look after our side of things then I’m sure we’ll have a successful season.”

Centre-forward Will Grigg was unable to mark his debut with a goal and it took some fine saves from the in-form Jon McLaughlin to avoid Sunderland’s third league defeat this season. That Oxford’s equaliser came in the 87th minute through substitute Marcus Browne made it more painful, but Power was determined to look on the bright side.

“New players were playing (Lewis Morgan was making his second appearance, and goalscorer Jimmy Dunne his third),” he pointed out. “I’m not trying to look for excuses, I’m not going to say we are playing particularly well.

“Can we be better? We know we can, but it’s not through lack of trying.

“Do I try and take the positives all the time? Yeah. We’ve lost two games all season in the league. Are we drawing too many? I would probably say yeah.

“But if we can get the second goal we would go on and win the game. We haven’t, so we’ll swallow this ahead of three home games on the bounce.

“If we win on Tuesday night then people think it probably wasn’t a bad point at Oxford.

“We’d love to win every game and I get the disappointment with fans travelling in huge numbers every game (1,808 were at the Kassam Stadium). But stick with us, that’s all I can stay.

“Everyone has to stay positive. We’re in a great position and let’s get back in the top two as quickly as we can.”

Power’s former Wigan team-mate Grigg has won promotion to the Championship four times, and has a prolific goalscoring record in the third tier. He has played a bit-part this season, starting only five matches since September and picking up an ankle injury in January. Sunderland paid £3m, rising to a potential £4m, for him on deadline day.

“That’s his first start in a while,” Power pointed out. “He suffered an injury at Wigan and wasn’t playing too much.

“I know him very well and I know that once he gets up to match speed, he finishes the half-chances.

“He does the hardest thing in the game and puts the ball in the back of the net. That’s what you pay the big money for.

“We’ve brought him in to hopefully push us back up that table and achieve what we want to achieve.”