Patrick Roberts has been praised for making his football penny drop - but Tony Mowbray insists the Celtic favourite should be playing Premier League football.
Potential at Fulham won the winger a move to Manchester City in his younger days and he shone at Celtic in the 2016/17 season, scoring 11 times with 19 assists. The next brought just a goal and five assists in green and white but for the first time since that 17/18 term, Roberts has more than six goal contributions, proving an influential figure in former Hoops boss Tony Mowbray's Sunderland attack.
He's netted four times with four assists for the Black Cats after helping them out of the League One doldrums, and they're now pushing for the Championship's top six. Mowbray says the 26-year-old should have been nowhere near England's third tier and should be quids in at the top table. He told Sunderland Nation: "Hopefully the penny is dropping for Pat.
"He's an amazing footballer and I hope we can help him play in the Premier League. I think he’s starting to live the life of a footballer from what I can see.
"He's lost two-and-a-half kilos in the last few weeks. I'm just trying to make him live like a footballer. Patrick Roberts shouldn't be playing in League One or even, with total respect to this football club, he should be playing in the Premier League in my opinion.
"And so he has to live like it. It's down to him., I know I maximised my career, to get to where I got in football, I wasn't a superstar.
"I was just a centre-half who used to try and win headers, but I got the most out of myself by living the life - eating, sleeping, drinking. I haven't drank alcohol since the age of 18 because I wanted to be the best footballer I can be.
"I have these conversations with Pat. He should be earning hundreds of thousands a week playing in the Premier League and living the life that his talent deserves, and yet he was playing in League One for Sunderland."
