Reading manager Paul Ince believes Sunderland have four ‘superb’ talents their ranks with Alex Pritchard, Jack Clarke, Amad Diallo and match-winner Patrick Roberts, speaking to the Royals website after Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at the Stadium of Light.
If you’d told those long-suffering Black Cats supporters, when they were stumbling around in the League One abyss, that Sunderland would soon find themselves just one point off the Championship play-off places – while boasting some of the most exciting attacking talent in England’s second tier – then you could probably bid farewell to your hand, such is the ferocity with which it would have been bitten off at the joint.
Even without injured top scorer Ross Stewart, Tony Mowbray could still field former Leeds wonderkid Jack Clarke, one-time Celtic flyer Roberts and a £19 million Manchester United loanee against Reading.
And, in the end, it was Roberts who turned one point into three; skipping into the box and finishing with ruthless efficiency.
Patrick Roberts scores the winner as Sunderland beat Reading
“We got punished in the 84th minute,” Ince sighs. “And you end up losing a game you shouldn’t lose. There is not much more to say about it. We made a mistake, they won the game. That’s the bottom line.
“In the first half we nullified them. We had three or four opportunities which, if we had been a bit more precise in the transition, we would have opened them up. And you could sense when the ball went into their box, they were uncomfortable.
“In the second half, Sunderland have some superb technicians up front. Some really good players like Roberts, Pritchard, Clarke and Diallo. We kept them quiet in the main.
“You expect them to have a couple of chances, they are at home – and Joe made a couple of good saves. But apart from those moments, they didn’t really threaten us.
“And you think you’ve ridden the worst and then, all of a sudden, you make a mistake.”
‘He should be playing in the Premier League’
Roberts has now scored four goals this season. All but one of those has come against Reading. And Mowbray believes that, at the age of 26 and following a couple of fallow years in the wilderness, the proverbial ‘penny’ might have dropped for a footballer finally starting to live up to his undoubted potential.
“Hopefully the penny is dropping for Pat. He’s an amazing footballer. I hope we can help him play in the Premier League,” says the former Blackburn boss (Northern Echo).
“I think he’s starting to live the life of a footballer from what I can see. He’s lost two-and-a-half kilos in the last few weeks.
“He should be earning hundreds of thousands a week playing in the Premier League, and living the life that his talent deserves.”
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