Sunderland star pays tribute to 'tactically good' Mike Dodds after West Brom win

Sunderland are in safe hands while the search continues for Tony Mowbray's replacement, says Patrick Roberts.

Patrick Roberts says all the Sunderland players ‘loved and adored’ Tony Mowbray, but he always felt confident that Mike Dodds would keep things ticking over nicely.

Mowbray was sacked last week after taking just one point from games against Plymouth, Huddersfield and Millwall.

Dodds took charge for the visit of West Brom and Sunderland responded by putting in a fine performance to come away with a 2-1 win.

Roberts was man-of-the-match, despite two assists from Alex Pritchard, but he paid tribute to Dodds who has provided some crucial stability through what had been a difficult week at the club.

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“It’s quite a surprise when the manager is gone,” Roberts told safc.com. “Especially someone who everyone loved and adored here and got the best out of most of us, especially me.

“We had to go into this game with full energy and we had a gameplan which we put into place. Pritch came up with a bit of magic, two good goals and we should have had a third.

“We had a poor week last week and had a few days off, got back into it and, like I said, the gameplan to a tee was spot on.

“It was nice to pick up the three points, move up the table and that’s what the fans want to see. That’s what us players want to do, we want to provide for them and that’s all we can do at this point.”

“After this week we kind of had to pick up some points and a good performance mainly. Doddsy has been here throughout the whole time I’ve been here so I know him and he knows the players.

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“So he got us set up and he’s been doing that since before Tony was even here. He’d put a gameplan in place. He’s tactically good like that. We stuck in there and to get the three points is great.”

Sunderland will need to be at their best on Tuesday too when high-flying Leeds United are the visitors at the Stadium of Light. 

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