This is what Alex Neil said about 'warrior' Lynden Gooch's outstanding Sunderland display

Gooch was again deployed as a wing back but after Lloyd Jones' early red card he was able to get even further up the pitch and delivered two assists in a superb display.

With the quality of his crossing, it could have been even more.

Gooch admitted this week that it has been an 'extremely difficult' season for him personally, making his display all the more impressive.

“I was really pleased with Lynden," Neil said.

"I think that’s probably the best he’s played since I’ve been here. I thought the instruction for him was really clear – get on the outside and put good early deliveries in. But his quality today was top notch.

"I’m really pleased for him, and the one thing I will say about him is he works his socks off every single day. When you talk about people wearing their heart on their sleeve for this club, he’s right up there.

"I don’t think anybody internally would ever have any doubts about Goochy. He’s a warrior and he’s desperate to do well here."

Results elsewhere mean Sunderland still have much work to do to secure a top-six place, but their goal difference received a welcome boost here.

"You could see from the substitutions, we put more attacking players on the pitch at each point," Neil said.

"Dan [Neil] hasn’t had a lot of minutes recently, and he’s good at picking passes out, so it was good to get him in. I thought Embleton was sensational today, and it’s nice to see Alex back on the pitch because he’s going to be a key player for us.

"We keep winning, but we’re not moving much, are we? We’ve won seven or eight games out of the last 12, or whatever it is, and we’ve still got work to do," he added.

"It’s not easy, is it? We just need to keep going.

"Sometimes, you feel as if you’ve done really well, and have done a good job with the lads, and at the moment, I feel like the lads deserve a bit of, ‘Right, that’s us in the play-offs, let’s prep’. But that’s not the case. We need to go again.

"We need to try to win the game on Tuesday, and then we probably need to go and win the game on Saturday as well," he added. "But that’s the nature of this league, and credit to the other teams because they’ve made it really tough.

"We’re on 80 points, and I don’t know how long it's been since you've needed that many to get into the play-offs.

"It’s been a challenging season, but I think today showed we’re more than capable.

“It’s good for the lads’ confidence, and good for the fans as well in terms of that feel good factor. I’d like to think they’ve felt as if they’ve watched some really good football today, seen some really good goals and been entertained.

"That bodes well for us going forward."