MICK McCARTHY admitted his team lacked the class to break down a well-drilled Derby County side at the Stadium of Light.

Sunderland's dour 0-0 draw against Derby, in front of their largest league gate of the season - 29,881 - was high on effort but woefully short on thrills and spills.

The result means they slip one place to seventh in the Coca Cola Championship table and six points behind leaders Wigan Athletic going into the two-week international break.

The Black Cats' boss made three changes to the side which lost 1-0 at Sheffield United, but the changes failed to inspire the team as McCarthy's side showed an alarming lack of enterprise or creativity.

Julio Arca, the man who usually provides the Wearsiders with invention and inspiration, was strangely out-of-sorts.

The conclusion to be ascertained from Saturday's fixture revealed you cannot win games on perspiration alone and if Sunderland are to gain promotion this year this has to be rectified.

McCarthy said: "We just did not have the quality, or a final touch, or a bit of luck to get a goal. And as you know goals do change games.

"Derby were sitting in and invited us to press them and then hit us on the break and that is the way the game was played.

"They've come with a game plan and to be fair they've probably surprised us. They had five or six corners in the first 20 minutes, which gave them a considerable lift.

"I'm disappointed we haven't won the game but I have to look at the overall unit and after six games we've taken 13 points. Prior to the Gillingham game if I could have said we were going to do that I would have been delighted.''

He added: "Derby are a similar club to us. They have 26,000-27,000 punters watching them and they were not just going to come up here and be easy fodder for us.

"I cannot fault the lads for effort, work-rate and determination - we just didn't have that bit of quality."

With a lack of flair or initiative on display it will come as no surprise to learn it was the home side's defenders who took star billing at the weekend.

Goalkeeper Mart Poom was officially named man of the match and rightly so as he kept the Wearsiders in the match.

The Sunderland boss also reserved praise for Neill Collins, who was making only his third start for the club following his move from Dumbarton.

He said: "Mart Poom made two terrific saves. Perhaps on a different day they might have gone in and perhaps on a different day Julio Arca might have contacted his header better.

"It was a dour affair but teams come and do that to us as they did last year and it is difficult to play against. I guess we need to start better and try and get a goal and games change. But the longer it went on the more difficult it became.

"I'm delighted with Neill (Collins). I think Stephen Caldwell has proved alongside Gary Breen they are a good partnership and these two now have to form a partnership. There is a free transfer and £25,000 at the back on Saturday and they've done very well."

It was rather unfortunate, or fortunate in Sunderland's case, that the game's most influential performer, County's Inigo Idiakez, had to leave the field at half-time through injury.

The former Real Sociedad midfielder schemer was at the centre of all Derby's best moves and constantly threatened from set plays.

For the first half-hour the home side struggled to get out of their own half as wave after wave of County attacks kept them penned in.

Former Black Cats' striker Tommy Smith nearly opened the scoring after ten minutes when he twisted and turned full back Stephen Wright to get a shot from a tight angle, but Poom managed to push his effort around the post for a corner.

The Sunderland goalkeeper saved his side's blushes once more ten minutes later when denying Grzegorz Rasiak from an Idiakez free kick; the Estonian international managed to turn the ball wide for a corner.

Sunderland's first opportunity came on the half-hour mark when Dean Whitehead's corner found the head of Caldwell. The former Newcastle stopper claimed his goal-bound header was handled and appealed for a penalty only for referee Neale Barry to wave play on.

A superb tackle by Caldwell ten minutes later prevented Derby taking the lead.

The impressive Idiakez threaded a beautiful ball through the eye of a needle for German Marco Reich, who looked certain to score but for the intervention of the Scot's last-gasp tackle.

Sunderland were a different side after the break and should have taken the lead in the 52nd minute through Stephen Elliott only for him to blast over the bar following good work from Wright.

Two minutes later Elliott had another opportunity to make up for his earlier miss only to shoot wide once more.

When Liam Lawrence replaced the injured Jeff Whitley on the hour the home side looked more threatening.

His introduction coincided with the Wearsiders' first shot on target from Whitehead's free-kick, which was parried for a corner by goalkeeper Lee Camp and Reich cleared Chris Brown's goal-bound effort from the resulting kick off the line.

The visitors continued to frustrate by employing 11 men behind the ball, inviting the home side on and hitting on the break.

But for Poom's shot-stopping skills it would reaped dividends as Sunderland were left short at the back on a number of occasions with Reich the guilty party in front of goal.

With three minutes of play left Sunderland nearly grabbed an unlikely victory when a mixture of Lawrence luck, and skill, saw him go past the impressive full back Jamie Vincent and Michael Johnson only for his effort to be hacked away by the Derby defenders.

Result: Sunderland 0 Derby County 0.

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