Lee Johnson wants to erase the “naivety” in Sunderland’s play after watching Gillingham clinch a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light.

The Gills came from behind twice to earn a point on Wearside and that prevented the Black Cats from edging even closer to the top two.

Aiden McGeady had put Sunderland ahead in the sixth minute only for Alex MacDonald to level matters 20 minutes later.

And even though Grant Leadbitter restored Sunderland’s lead two minutes before the interval, Gillingham’s Jordan Graham hammered in the leveller in the final minute.

Sunderland were left disappointed not to have earned a third straight win in Sky Bet League One, as Graham was able to capitalise on a flick from John Akinde following a long punt upfield.

Black Cats boss Johnson said: “I’m frustrated because it was naivety in the final five or six minutes. We have generally been good at dealing with that.

“We obviously didn’t have Bailey Wright back there (injury), so you lose that organiser and talker in there.

“They had a line of five and we had a line of four for the goal – work that out. That is the boys needing to organise it in that situation.”

But Johnson had no complaints about the way Gillingham, who have collected eight points from their last 12, approached the game under manager Steve Evans.

“I wouldn’t call it possession, more like box entries, not possession,” said Johnson. “It was very similar to the Northampton game.

“We don’t deal with it and if you don’t get the quality into the box at the other end, and it wasn’t just the wingers, then that is what can happen.

“There were too many times we got to the elbow of the box and didn’t produce the quality. We have to finish teams off. Styles don’t bother me … we have to deal with it. We were unfortunate we didn’t finish that today.”

Gillingham boss Evans was delighted with his side’s spirit to deliver a result that keeps his side six points shy of Sunderland – even though he was angry with the penalty decision when Robbie Cundy appeared to pull down McGeady.

Evans said: “We’ll take the point; the performance was the main thing. We were decent; we battled hard.

“We got back into the game, Alex MacDonald’s is a good strike, we hit the underside of the bar and were totally dominant.

“We had a penalty given against us, it’s a shocking decision. In the second half they had a little spell; for 10 minutes they were the better side but didn’t make a chance.

“We changed the system, Tyreke Johnson puts a brilliant ball in; the flick from John Akinde was excellent and it was a fantastic finish from Jordan Graham.

“We played very well in spells; we make the long journey back to Kent with real disappointment that we don’t go back with all three points. The players gave us everything.”