Stephen Elliott: Ex-Celtic star should be playing Premier League football - ideally with Sunderland

Tony Mowbray was branded a safe pair of hands when he came in. Thankfully he has proven to be much more than that and has this team playing a beautiful brand of football.

He is a manager who seems to instil huge belief in his players. There is an air of confidence about every player that puts on the shirt.

On Saturday, Reading paid Sunderland the ultimate compliment with how they set up for the game. Paul Ince’s side sat in and made it difficult for the lads to get any rhythm in their play. This stifled the lads slightly but the quality was still bubbling away, albeit not quite boiling in the first half.

I actually thought the lads looked a little bit tired in the first half and that bit of final product was not quite there.

This is not a criticism of the manager, by the way, as hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’m sure he was just trying to keep the consistency of a very good performance against a decent Premier League team, but I feel a few more changes could have helped avoid this sluggishness.

Like I mentioned earlier, it seems Mowbray has real trust in all his squad though, and once again this faith was rewarded. He recognised that a freshness was needed on the pitch Saturday and he didn’t leave it too late to make changes to affect the game. All the subs played their part and did what was needed.

The winning goal eventually came, albeit with a slice of luck, by Patrick Roberts, who seems to enjoy playing against Reading. The little magician is loving life at the club and always looks like he is capable of breaking the locks on the opposition.

His goal came from taking the game to the Reading defence. He struck it home confidently to give the team a deserved three points. Roberts has Premier League quality, which the boss even alluded to after the game.

It won’t be long till he is playing in that league and if he continues performing the way he is, that could be in a Sunderland shirt. We won’t get too excited just yet, though. It seems there is a real togetherness in both the squad itself plus that of the supporters towards the team.

To get promoted, as we know, both fans and players need to be on the same hymn sheet. Thankfully this is hugely evident at this club at the moment and the fact that there is nearly forty thousand at every home game - plus the vocal away support – it works even more so here than most clubs.

There is no time to really enjoy the win though as once again, as so often is the case, the team are on the road again with another trip to the capital on Tuesday night.

If the team can pick up another win at QPR then there’s a good chance they will be placed firmly in the top six.