The unseen training-ground work that paid off for Sunderland at Sheffield Wednesday

Tony Mowbray was thrilled to see hard training-ground work pay off as Dan Ballard added his second goal of the campaign against Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night.

Ballard met Alex Pritchard's corner in the opening moments of the game to put his side ahead, an early blow from which a Sheffield Wednesday side bereft of confidence never looked like recovering from.

The central defender did not score last season but now has two goals in as many weeks, and his head coach believes that is no coincidence.

"We've worked hard with Dan Ballard on those double movements, like we do with the strikers," Mowbray said.

"You can't just think you're going to make one run and then score a goal. You don't just stand at point A, run to point B and then head it in. People stop you, people block you, people mark you.

"You've got to make a run to A so that you can then get to B to head it in. If you look, Dan started, he makes a run and then he spins around into a different position and then he can head it in when the ball arrives. He lost his man by making a run when his marker tries to hold him, and then he backs away and dives in. It's good that he's getting those goals off the back of that work we've done with him on losing that marker.

"We need to core goal from all over the pitch, I've said that all season. You need around 70 goals if you want to get near the play-off positions and the more the centre halves can chip in, the more the central midfielder shoot from the edge of the box and score...

"The centre forwards have got to come to the party but they're new to the stage and hopefully at some stage we will be getting them into double figures for us as well."

Ballard is one of five Sunderland players to now have two goals across all competitions for the season so far, with Jack Clarke now well out in front as top scorer on seven.