Tony Mowbray hailed 'class act' Pierre Ekwah after the midfielder's star turn in Sunderland's play-off semi-final win against Luton Town. January addition Ekwah produced a man of the match display as the Black Cats came from behind to win 2-1 against the Hatters at the Stadium of Light in the first leg of the semi, with the return fixture coming up at Kenilworth Road on Tuesday evening.
There were fine performances all over the pitch in Sunderland's injury-ravaged side, with flair players Patrick Roberts, Amad, and Jack Clarke all impressing, but it was 21-year-old Ekwah's action-packed outing in the middle of the park against Luton's powerful players, and his willingness to stride forward, that meant he stood out. "Ekwah showed what a class act he is," said Mowbray of the former West Ham man.
"Patrick Roberts was unplayable really - it's just a joy to watch him travel with the ball, he just slips the ball through people's legs and doesn't even break stride. Amad brings what he brings, so yeah, it was a very good performance."
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Luton went in front early in the game through Elijah Adebayo, but Amad levelled before half-time and Trai Hume completed the turnaround just after the hour. Sunderland will now take that slender but precious lead into the second leg, and Mobray's men will be boosted with the knowledge that their away record has been better than their home record this season, picking up 39 points on the road compared to 30 on home soil.
Mowbray said: "Any lead has got to be good. Our confidence playing away from home is really good.
"The lads took a huge amount of confidence from our performance at Fulham in the FA Cup in January and since then we have gone to Norwich and won, we've gone to West Brom and got a positive result, the result at Preston [to secure a play-off spot on the final day of the season] was positive. I don't think it [Kenilworth Road] holds any fears for us - we're not sitting thinking 'how are we going to stop them putting the ball in our box?'
"I hope they'll be sitting thinking 'how are we going to stop Roberts and Amad?'"
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