Supporters have played 'important' role in club's recent resurgence, says Sunderland star

Patrick Roberts says the understanding and patience of the Sunderland fans has been vitally ‘important’ to the club’s recent fine form.

It is one year to the day that Alex Neil arrived at Sunderland and started the job of hauling the Black Cats out of the League One misery that had engulfed them.

Tony Mowbray has continued that fine work, and enhanced it, and the 1-0 win over Reading left Sunderland just one point and one place away from the Championship play-off positions.

And, for Roberts, the supporters’ role in that should not be underestimated – with the Reading win a prime example.

“I think it’s been important all throughout the whole season,” Roberts told safc.com when asked about how the fans stuck with the side right until the very end against Reading.

“Even last year when I was here and getting over the line last year and not putting too much pressure on, us especially when we've got a few young players.

“They've been really patient and they obviously want to see us win and we can only try and help them do that and give them some joy on their way home.

“I feel like we’ve done that this season and I think it’s just halfway through and we got more to do and more to show.

“We have got a good morale at the minute and we just want to keep winning games as much as possible and see where we can go.”

There is a sense of building momentum at Sunderland right now. The last time Sunderland lost a Championship game with 11 men on the pitch was a month ago against West Brom, and they have gone toe-to-toe with Premier League high-flyers Fulham twice in that time too.

They head to QPR on Tuesday hoping to maintain that form, and Roberts says the whole squad are looking forward to every game these days.

“You could say even in the two legs [against Fulham] I thought we matched them really well,” Roberts said.

“You know it was a Premier League side who are doing really well and we have got that in our group now.

“We have young players, lot of young players. I think I’m the second oldest out there today and you need everyone to stick together and pull out three points when you can.

“We did that and we have a great team morale here, we want to keep winning and keep doing this club proud and keep enjoying our football, and hopefully the fans can see that and enjoy it too with us.“

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