Draw's not good enough - Thomas

But he still left the Stadium of Light disappointed not to have claimed all three points against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

Sunderland and Blackburn played out a goalless draw for the second time this season - the first coming on the opening day of the season - and it was a scrappy affair, especially from the home side.

Sorensen ousted unfortunate Austrian Jurgen Macho to end his three-month injury absence and produced crucial saves to deny Rovers' deadly strike duo Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke.

He said: "These have been three long months and a lot of hard work, so it is nice to see it pay off.

"I found out only 90 minutes before the game that I was playing and I was delighted.

"I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the important games that are coming.

"I did not have that much to do in the game, but it was nice to do well when I was called on.

"We had chances to win it and maybe we were unlucky, or maybe we were not good enough to stick them away. That is the story of our season.

"But we can't sit and feel sorry for ourselves. We can get better, but I still think we could have gone on and won it.

"But hopefully the injury situation will get better and we can all get stronger."

Sorensen had accepted he had no right to think he was number one choice in goal, but only ended up sitting out last weekend's FA Cup trip to Bolton Wanderers before winning a recall at Macho's expense.

He said: "I am the one in there now and it is down to me to keep the others out of the team.

"I have said all along that Jurgen has done tremendously well, but I am just pleased the manager has chosen me and I will do everything I can to contribute."

Sorensen wasn't called into action often, even though Rovers looked the more fluent attacking side.

But he admitted what he saw in front of him wasn't pretty, adding: "It was a game on the edge and it could have gone either way.

"We could have won and we could have lost, but we probably had the clearer chances and should have stuck one or two of them away.

"I thought we improved when Julio Arca and Marcus Stewart came on. They are good players who can keep the ball.

"We gave the ball away too easily sometimes.

"A point is OK - better than no points - but we have home games coming up against Charlton and Southampton, and they're games at the beginning of the season that we would have said we could get six points from.

"That is what we need to do now."