Ross Stewart's relief at ending his goal drought as Sunderland close in on play-off place

Ross Stewart admits he is relieved to have ended his eight-game goal drought - and hopes his scoring touch has returned at the perfect time to help Sunderland reach the play-offs. Stewart went into Saturday's game against Cambridge United on the back of a barren run that stretched back to the end of February, when he scored twice in the Black Cats' 3-0 win at Wigan.

But he scored another brace as Sunderland beat ten-man Cambridge 5-1 at the Stadium of Light, taking him to 24 for the season and putting him back on top of the League One goalscoring charts. "I was certainly aware of it [the run without a goal] and was probably just as frustrated as anybody," said Stewart.

"As strikers you want to be scoring goals, but at the same time the team have been winning games. When you are winning games that takes over the mood of the camp and that is the most important thing - winning games.

"I think we are unbeaten in 11 now and to get back amongst the goals today, and on top of that getting another important win sets us up for Tuesday [when promotion contenders Rotherham are the visitors]."

Stewart started the ball rolling against Cambridge inside the opening quarter-of-an-hour, winning and converting a penalty when he was bundled over by Lloyd Jones - with Jones also controversially sent off for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity. Stewart said: "I thought it was definitely a penalty. I didn't really have a view of the challenge and was under the ball and the defender collided into me.

"I definitely thought it was a penalty and the ref has obviously made the decision to go with that. It was obviously good to step up and score that penalty early and that gave us a platform to goal and win the game."

Elliot Embleton added