When Tony Mowbray played for Middlesbrough his manager, Bruce Rioch, maintained the centre-half was the man he would want alongside him during a rocket flight to the moon. Almost four decades on, and Sunderland supporters have increasing reason to believe Mowbray’s navigation skills could be about to transport them to new heights. Buoyed up by a crowd of 42,584 his gifted, audaciously attack minded young team certainly proved far too good for Michael Carrick’s previously upwardly mobile Middlesbrough side.
Although Boro spent most of the second half with ten men, a Sunderland side inspired by the 20-year-old Manchester United loanee Amad Diallo’s attacking excellence were already well on top by the time Dael Fry was sent off. Goals from Diallo and Ross Stewart lifted them to ninth, one point adrift of sixth-placed Boro, who had won seven of their previous eight Championship games. What price this sweet passing pair meeting again in the play-offs?
