Dennis Cirkin has 'Premier League qualities' according to Tony Mowbray, after the defender's brace saw off top six rivals West Brom and sent Sunderland into the play-off places. The Black Cats came from behind to beat the Baggies at The Hawthorns, recovering after John Swift had won and then converted a penalty on the stroke of half-time.
But Cirkin headed Sunderland level early in the second period before scoring the winner five minutes from time, and that meant the Wearsiders moved up to sixth place on goal difference. "Dennis scored an amazing goal at Millwall when he got his concussion, and a brilliant header at the back stick against Wigan earlier in the season," said Mowbray of Cirkin, who was returning after sitting out the midweek draw against Huddersfield Town through suspension.
"Dennis is a really powerful, aggressive, guy and we just need to keep on pushing him to believe in himself and to go and do it. He's undoubtedly got Premier League quality, he's a powerful unit and he can nick goals for you as he did today.
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"Why he was in the box? I'm not sure!
"He was playing left centre-half in a back three and yet he ended up in the box twice and scored two goals. It's credit to the bravery of the team that they kept going and he joined in.
"I'm delighted for the team and delighted for Dennis and delighted for the thousands of fans who made the trip again today."
Sunderland were the better side in the opening 45 minutes and West Brom's goal came against the run of play - with Mowbray describing the penalty away against Luke O'Nien as 'soft'. But over the 90 minutes, Mowbray felt his team deserved their victory.
He said: "We played well apart from at the start of both halves - they looked really controlled early in the first half, and then in the second half they came out really aggressively and put us on the back foot - but generally we managed to control it and found the spaces to play in and we were brave today and, over the 90 minutes, deserved to win."
Sunderland went into the game without eight first-team players, and without either a specialist centre-forward or central defender. West Brom are a threat from set-pieces, and Mowbray was delighted that his side managed to prevent them taking advantage.
He said: "It was even more pleased that we denied them a goal from a set-play, given the total lack of physicality in our team! Our goalkeeping coach Alessandro Barcherini was having sleepless nights this week because we had to change our system - normally we have a bit of man-marking and a bit of zonal, but we went totally zonal today aside from one player marking Semi Ajayi.
"I thought we did it reasonably well."
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