Preston North End boss Ryan Lowe again left questioning players' mentality after Sunderland net three in 10 minutes

In an even first 45, both sides had chances and it promised to be a good spectacle to close of the season, however after Amad Diallo’s stunning strike opened the scoring on 54 minutes, one quickly became two with Alex Pritchard doubling the visitors’ lead on the hour mark and two became three just five minutes later as Jack Clarke found the bottom corner.

A 10 minute capitulation catapulted the Black Cats into the top six as North End went down with whimper in the final game of the 2022/23 season, Preston ending up in 12th.

Lowe wants to use the frustration of missing out, and losing, as motivation for next season. Although he doesn’t question the effort his side puts in, he was again left with questions about their mentality.

He said: “The disappointment part is, I said about mentality and I don't know where the mentality comes from. I don't mean it in terms of not giving everything, their attitude. The mentality of being savvy when you concede, can we be tight and compact and not concede again. When you miss one chance can you have the mentality of 'I'm going to score the next one'. That's the mentality we can get better at.

"We went out all guns blazing, we played three strikers today to have a right good go. We fell short. The goals they scored, can they be avoided? Yeah definitely. Ultimately it's points that get you where you want to get to and we've fallen short by six points.

"In the grand scheme of things it's not too bad, you only have to look at sides who have fallen out having been there all season, that's disappointment. Tony Mowbray’s just said that for clubs like us we just need to keep doing the right things and that's certainly what we'll be doing.”

North End could have had their noses in front going into the break, Liam Delap missing a chance when through one on one with the goalkeeper.

In the end though it was Sunderland who came to the fore and were able to celebrate an unlikely top six finish.

“I thought we were very good in the first half, there was some good football. We had a good couple of chances to go in 1-0,” Lowe said. “In the second half, to be fair, they showed us a lot of respect and changed shape and matched us up.

"The first goal is a little bit scruffy from our behalf, it's come out to Ali and he's punched it back in and it's come out to Diallo. He's got that quality. I thought we kept him quiet in the first half, him and Clarke, and Roberts, but sometimes that isn't always the case. What I'm frustrated about is when we concede, we concede quickly. It happened in the last game, when we concede we concede quickly.

"We gave it a good go, we've given everything. It's not been today, Sheffield United or even Swansea for that matter that has cost us a chance to get into the play-offs. It's six points that should have come from games earlier on in the season and then who knows. It's small progress but we want to go better and we'll have to use that for our motivation for next season.”