Tony Mowbray explains his big tactical 'gambles' as Sunderland land a huge three points with late winner

The Black Cats struggled to break down a deep-lying Reading defence, leading Mowbray to deploy Aji Alese and Trai Hume almost as strikers in the second half.

He also introduced a raft of attacking players shortly before Roberts benefited from a Baba Rahman mistake to score a fine winner.

"I thought we could have done it more in the first half, to be honest," Mowbray said of his tactical tweaks.

"Aji and Trai are both exceptionally good in the air and if we're honest, Patrick and Jack arriving at the back post aren't scoring many headers. I think when we go down one side, if we're going to drop diagonals in the box because they're in a low block... while they weren't carrying a huge threat running at us on the counter we felt we could push our full backs right up there.

"We felt we could get at them through the middle as well, Aji getting in the middle narrows off their back five and allows Jack and Patrick to stay really high - and Aji almost got a goal from it.

"Then the changes were a bit of a gamble really.

"We put Isaac on who doesn't speak English - and we had a bit of a job to make sure he played on the right wing! Jewison scored the other day, Ba travels with the ball and eliminates players... so it's good for the players that we've been able to integrate them and let the supporters see what they're about."

Mowbray says his team need to improve but said a challenging week offered mitigation for what at times was a laboured performance on the ball.

"We found a way," he said.

"I really didn't want to come in here and talk about being tired but I have to say, I thought our brains seemed a bit dull in the first half.

"We knew it was going to be tough to get through them but I just felt we were a bit dull, and there were a few of them there are frustrated

"We found a way, it's three points in the bag and we're not going to over analyse it, but we do have to be braver and a bit better with the ball. It was too slow, didn't break the lines, poor weight of pass.

"I can't sit here and say we were really good at this and that today, because it wasn't our best performance by a long way. But we kept a clean sheet against a team that can cause you problems and they've had some decent away results lately. To keep a clean sheet was really good for the team and our concentration behind the ball was good - hopefully it was a learning curve for these players on a journey.

"It's a bit frustrating for me that we weren't better, but it was our third game of the week - a hugely intense game against Millwall and then the emotional drain of playing against a Premier League team."