TONY MOWBRAY accepts Sunderland might have to win all five of their remaining matches in order to sneak into the play-offs, so the Black Cats boss is desperately hoping his side can claim back-to-back home victories over Birmingham and Huddersfield to make things interesting in the final two weeks of the season.

Last weekend’s 1-0 win at Cardiff City kept Sunderland’s hopes of finishing in the top six alive as it left them four points adrift of Millwall and Blackburn Rovers, who currently sit in fifth and sixth positions respectively.

With Blackburn having a game in hand, and with three sides between the Black Cats and Mowbray’s former club, Sunderland remain outsiders to claim a play-off place, but the fixture list looks relatively kind in the next few days, with Saturday’s home game against 17th-placed Birmingham followed by Tuesday’s Stadium of Light showdown with relegation-threatened Huddersfield.

Win those two matches, and things could look a fair bit different, so while Mowbray admits there is precious little room for error in the games that remain, he is hoping his side can keep their play-off dream alive for as long as possible.

“You can see the finish line now, just down the road,” he said. “We’ve got five games to go, and if we can win these next two home games, then we’ll have three games to go and we’ll be right in touch.

“We should rightly be excited. What you do know, with so few games left, is that if you lose a game, it can put you out of contention if you’re the team chasing. We have to be really focused and concentrate on Saturday, and hope that we can make it exciting for Tuesday night. Then, if we can win on Tuesday too, that’ll make it really exciting for the following weekend, and then every game is genuinely a cup final because you’re going to have to get three points. If you don’t, you’ll drop away.

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“Really, the target has to be for us to get as close as we possibly can to winning five football matches. That’s what it might take, and let’s be honest, that’s pretty unlikely because we haven’t done it all season, so why would we do it now? But let’s enjoy the challenge, starting with Birmingham on Saturday. Let’s get three points, and see where that takes us.”

Mowbray has previously suggested he might use the final few matches to give some of his younger players some valuable game time, but he will only be doing that if things do not go to plan in this week’s back-to-back home games.

“The responsibility of the job is to try to grow the group,” he said. “So, if we fall away and can’t achieve anything, then we will potentially turn to some of the young players who we think have got potential.

“You might find a scenario where all of the loan players don’t play because we want to give some of our players some experience. But whilst we have things to fight for, and mathematically we have an opportunity, then the only thought will be to pick teams to win games.”