'His best performance since I've been here' - Tony Mowbray impressed by Sunderland ace

Tony Mowbray believed Jack Clarke produced his best performance for Sunderland in the away win at Norwich.

Clarke is a contender for the Sunderland player of the year award after a scoring nine goals and producing seven assists in all competitions.

He is obviously much more noted for his attacking contributions than anything else, but it was another side of his game that won praise from Mowbray following the win at Carrow Road.

"We tried to play positively and aggressively and get on the front foot, knowing that we were going to be playing against a team that play on the front foot and build from the back," Mowbray explained.

"I've watched some games of theirs where if you try and sit off against them in a deep block, they eventually just find their way through.

“In the first 30 minutes, we saw the benefits of that and we could have scored more than one goal. We did get pushed back by a good football team who are positionally good and move it well.

"We knew today was going to be a different challenge for us this week - and for the wide players particularly, you know that you're going to end up getting pushed back and Roberts and Clarke had to track their full back all the way to the back stick.

"We found a way and got it done. I thought we worked really hard, Roberts has had better games but he worked extraordinarily hard and that was Jack Clarke's best performance since I've been here.

“He didn't score but his work ethic and ability to ask questions of Max Aarons was so impressive. It's great credit to the players and it takes away that negatively of not having won for a while - we've got some really hard games coming up. It's a great challenge for them.

"The compactness of the team was what was good from the team today, we've had moments this season where we've conceded goals and the wide players are wandering over the halfway line shaking their heads.

“As I keep saying to them, that isn't acceptable. I told Patrick that he was going to have to break a world record for distance covered today, because I knew Norwich would overload us and hit those diagonals.

“We were in trouble if they didn't run back, and they did. They were amazing, they weren't ripping the opposition to bits as they can because they were running back.”

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