JOBE BELLINGHAM took a swipe at the Sky Sports pundits who doubted if Sunderland’s youngsters had the minerals for promotion.
The Black Cats came into the Wembley showdown off the back of horror league form losing five on the bounce.
They saw off Frank Lampard’s Coventry in the semis to face Sheffield United the play-off final.
And Bellingham & Co had to come from behind to win 2-1 with academy graduate Tom Watson scoring a 95th minute winner.
Regis Le Bris has put trust in his youthful squad this season, with Bellingham only 19, Chris Rigg, just 17 and Eliezer Mayenda, 20.
It had led to questions over their experience – but the players did their talking on the pitch.
And Bellingham said: “I always believed, you have to believe.
“When you’ve got supporters like this and a group of lads like that, you always have to believe.
“I always believed and I know people doubted us and that’s understandable, we lost a few games, people talk about momentum.
“But I think we did enough, we showed enough throughout the season for people to at least give us some credit going into the play-offs.
“The typical “inexperienced” by all the ex-pros that speak on Sky but we’ve just proved that don’t matter.
“You need experience, of course, with youth like at Sunderland you play loads of games you get that experience.
“You get experience by failing and we failed together so many times and in the end we come good.”
Sky pundits Curtis Davies and Jobi McAnuff then probed Bellingham on what ex-pro criticised them.
But he said with a smile: “I didn’t say criticising!”
Sunderland are now back in the Premier League for the first time since 2017.
And Bellingham said: “I’ve been part of this great team so every player has made a name for themselves here. So really proud.”
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