Tony Mowbray explains his key Sunderland dilemma as a very welcome option emerges

Mowbray deployed the attacking players on his bench to devastating effect during the 4-1 win over Wigan Athletic, highlighting his challenge at Blackpool and beyond.

“We’ve got some talented attackers," Mowbray said.

"It’s not easy to manage, because generally attacking players have egos attached to them, and they all want to play. They all sulk when they come off because they think they can score, and yet my job is to incorporate everybody but also try to get them to be humble enough to understand that it’s not about them. I tell them I love them all, yet I can’t pick eight strikers and attacking midfielders because we have to try to win the match.

"Football’s always about a balance, but there is a lot of riches in that attacking part of the field now considering that a couple of months ago, we had no strikers at all. Now, we seem to be flush with them. We’ve picked up defensive injuries, so we’ll have to try to get them back, but things are definitely looking brighter at the other end."

Having been forced into resting a fatigued Corry Evans at Wigan, Mowbray was also delighted that Dan Neil showed his growing maturity with an excellent performance in that pivotal role.

“I see a maturing Dan Neil now," he said.

"I see a lad that looks you in the eye when you’re telling him what his job is and what he has to do. I thought he was aggressive, I thought he competed, and he knows when to travel with the ball and when to pop it off. I think he’s maturing into a really good player. Hopefully, people who have seen him come through from the youth teams can see the full progression in him. He’s growing all the time, he provided the balance for the attacking-midfield players around him.

"He was very mature and did that job very well, I felt. We’ve talked about the growth areas for Dan, and that’s to see more forward passes. You watch the best players in the Premier League, and they all pass forward through the lines. Get it to the tens, get it to Amad, even if they’ve got people up their backsides because they can deal with it.

"Trust the good players in your team and keep passing forward because if people are sitting in the stands watching from the Premier League, I can guarantee they’ll be looking at whether you can pass it forward.

"Hopefully, Dan will be playing in the Premier League with Sunderland sometime in the near future, so the message to all the midfield players really is, ‘Don’t be content passing it back to the centre-half or just laying it off to the full-back – can you turn, do you know what’s behind you, let the ball roll across your body and with your first touch, pop it off to the tens or the forward players’.

"If we do that, we’ll become a really good team, and they’re starting to understand that and see those pictures.”