Inside a crucial win for Sunderland and how they turned frustration into jubilation

Partly by design, partly by necessity.

Alex Pritchard is sort of the striker but he’s not the player furthest forward. No, that would be either Aji Alese or Trai Hume, depending on which flank Sunderland are attacking from. There’s every chance Danny Batth will be there to join them, too.

The two wingers have 38 years and no Championship starts between them. There are three players in defensive positions but everyone else has been pushed on to go and win the game.

Mowbray’s Sunderland: No formations, just ballers. There will be days when he comes in for criticism as all head coaches do, but you suspect it won’t often be because of a lack of intent.

Perhaps the best way to disguise Sunderland in these closing stages is to say that it was a sort of organised chaos. At half time they were forced to confront the fact that they had so far got, well, absolutely nowhere.

Mowbray is reluctant to give his young and athletic squad the excuse of being fatigued but it was clear to all that they were off the pace. They gave the ball away in poor areas, under and overhitting passes that have found their mark with pace and precision for weeks. The head coach has pledged to rotate during this busy schedule but he resisted the temptation to do it here and the physical and mental impact of two high-intensity games looked obvious.

Reading came to spoil and their task was being made easier than they could ever have been anticipated. In front of a back five sat another box of four and all Sunderland could do was move it from side to side.

Sunderland were sluggish and they were also struggling for answers to Reading’s defensive structure. They were dominating possession, but far from Joe Lumley’s goal.

So Mowbray made his first tweak. With Reading largely dependent on set pieces for their attacking threat, he and his coaching staff surmised that the threat of conceding a goal on the break was fairly minimal. So that meant he could probably afford to push his full backs right up, giving his wingers more space and also a target to hit in the box.

Sunderland also started to play forward both earlier and more regularly, finally turning a defence that had been enjoying a pretty comfortable afternoon.

It would be wrong to say that the game was transformed, because in truth it remained pretty tough going. But it lifted the atmosphere in the Stadium of Light and it gave Reading something to think about.

Having had some bright moments in the opening moments, the visitors were being pushed further and further back and that was best summed up when Junior Hoilett was replaced by another defender in Scott Dann. Though the youth and sheer weight of attacking numbers in Sunderland’s side after Mowbray’s substitutions meant at times it was a little frantic, there were players everywhere whose first touch and movement was forward. From that tempo, opportunity slowly but surely followed.

Sunderland needed a moment of luck to win it, for sure. Patrick Roberts did well to burst into the box and the finish was sublime, not so much the strike but the little dummy before it to take both last defender and goalkeeper out of the game, but the ball should have been cleared when Baba Rahman instead opted to take a touch. It was, ironically, one of the first times they had tried to play.

Expansive they were not, but they are also a club that has for some time been operating under a transfer embargo and who were tipped by most to be relegated this season. Their style has taken them further than most expected, and Ince felt the end very almost justified the means.

For Mowbray, it’s something that he feels his side are just going to have to get better at dealing with as they grow in the weeks, months and years ahead. They need to be quicker and braver than they were here, at least in the first half.

What Mowbray has consistently said, and did so again after this win, was that the inconsistency in how much added time is awarded needs to be addressed. To award two minutes of added time at the end of the first half was an insult to all who had been unfortunate enough to sit through it.

“I couldn’t sit here and say we were really good at this and that,” Mowbray said honestly afterwards.

“It wasn’t our best performance by a long way.” The head coach even went as fair to say that he’d been left frustrated that his side had so struggled to find their rhythm.

The best thing you could say was that they had, ultimately, found a way.

Another game goes by, another three points goes on the board and still Sunderland stay within touching distance of the play-off positions. Mowbray has consistently said that the inexperience and the lack of depth in this squad will mean they likely fall short at this early stage of their journey, but he knows just as well that you can’t rule them out.

They have a sturdy defensive base, individual talent and a real desire to fight for every point.

These three were as hard-earned as they come, and all the more satisfying for it. Another step forward, another hurdle cleared.