Silk and steel. Sunderland's win at Birmingham City was a showcase for both aspects of the Black Cats' game.
Two slick goals, allied to dogged, determined, bodies-on-the-line defending to withstand a late assault from the Blues.
The mercurial talent of Amad lit up St Andrew's, with his clever footwork on the edge of the box ending with an assist for Ellis Simms inside the opening half-hour as the fit-again forward scored his first goal since August. Amad's assist was then matched by that of Dan Neil just after half-time, as the latter threaded a perfect throughball for the on-loan Manchester United winger to race into the penalty area and curl a left-foot shot in off the post - a stunning finish to a brilliant move.
READ MORE: Sunderland lose Dennis Cirkin to injury, as Tony Mowbray explains who will be back to face Millwall
The 2,200 Sunderland fans who had made the trip to the Midlands for a Friday night game shown live on TV, were getting their money's worth. But Sunderland needed to show defensive steel, too.
Troy Deeney had already hit the bar with a header in the first half, while Anthony Patterson made a fine save to deny Scott Hogan. And once Birmingham sub Lukas Jutkiewicz had given the hosts hope when he halved the deficit with a little over ten minutes remaining, Sunderland found themselves hanging on for dear life.
The likes of Danny Batth and Corry Evans were immense in weathering the storm, and right at the death, one-time Sunderland loannee Dion Sanderson saw a shot blocked on the line before Patterson blocked his follow-up shot to preserve the points. The look of relief on Tony Mowbray's face when he faced the media at after the game said it all.
Not so much at the result, although that was of course part of the mix. But more than that, Mowbray looked relieved that Sunderland have finally reached the World Cup break, and can draw breath.
Because adjusting to life back in the Championship would have been tough enough by itself, and it has been made considerably more difficult by a catalogue of injuries to key players. Ross Stewart, Daniel Ballard, Aji Alese, Lynden Gooch, and Edouard Michut are all sidelined, while Simms has also missed a chunk of the campaign has only just returned to action in the last couple of weeks.
Dennis Cirkin is the latest name added to that casualty list, with the left-back missing out on the trip to Birmingham with a calf issue. Niall Huggins replaced him, playing his first game after 14 months on the sidelines, and lasted the 90 minutes, while on the bench it was a sign of how depleted are Sunderland's resources that Mowbray included 17-year-old Zak Johnson as his only defensive substitute.
In recent weeks Mowbray has talked increasingly about getting through to the World Cup break, after which he expects several of those injured players to return. Now they have made it, and they have a three-week break until Sunderland's league campaign resumes at home to Millwall on December 3.
By then, Alese, Gooch, and Cirkin should all be fit, and Stewart could also be ready to be eased back into action, which could make a huge difference in the month of December and beyond. With so many players missing, it has felt like hard going at times over the last couple of months.
Draw, draw, draw, lose, win, lose, lose, draw, win, lose, win - Sunderland have struggled to find any real consistency. But, given the circumstances - newly-promoted club stripped of key players - Sunderland have probably exceeded all realistic expectations.
Their haul of 27 points from 20 games is a decent return and their win at Birmingham lifted them into midtable, albeit they could drop a place or two depending on the outcomes of this afternoon's games. Had they not been forced to play for six weeks without a centre-forward, they would almost certainly have put more points on the board and been comfortably in the top half of the table by now.
Mowbray now intends to give his players a week's break, before they head to Dubai for warm-weather training and then fly home to begin their preparations for Millwall. And once their injuries clear up, they will return all the stronger.
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