How Sunderland's Lynden Gooch stopped Burnley's Manuel Benson in man of the match performance at Turf Moor

The Belgian winger played a significant part as Vincent Kompany’s side came from two goals down at the Stadium of Light, contributing with a goal and an assist while causing regular problems on the visitors’ right flank.

Benson has been sidelined with an injury in recent months but returned to Burnley’s starting XI to face Sunderland at Turf Moor on Friday night. Yet, unlike that reverse fixture, he was kept on the fringes of the contest.

A big reason for that was the performance of Lynden Gooch, who was making his first Sunderland start since January due to a knee issue and playing in an unfamiliar left-back role.

According to Wyscout, Gooch made nine interceptions against Burnley, which included cutting out dangerous passes, stopping crosses into the box and making crucial blocks inside his own penalty area.

“He’s been out for a decent period of time and he just slots in wherever,” said Sunderland team-mate Dan Neil after Gooch was awarded Sky Sports’ man of the match award.

"He was brilliant and fully deserved his man of the match award.”

While playing in several different positions during his senior career at Sunderland, which stretches over a decade, Gooch’s defensive qualities have been questioned at times.

Against Burnley, though, the 27-year-old regularly got his distances just right to thwart Benson's obvious threat or cut off the space directly in front of Sunderland’s goal.

Gooch’s availability at left-back also came at a timely part of the season for Black Cats boss Tony Mowbray, with Aji Alese ruled out for the rest of the campaign and Dennis Cirkin, who came off the bench, still being eased back following a concussion injury.

Dan Ballard’s hamstring issue then meant Luke O’Nien was moved across to centre-back alongside captain Danny Batth, with Trai Hume keeping his place at right-back.

It may not have been Mowbray’s first-choice back four, yet Sunderland still became the first team to keep a clean sheet against Burnley at Turf Moor this season.

That was down to an organised and hard-fought away performance from the whole team, yet Gooch’s performance on his return to the side was particularly praiseworthy.