AND to think we were all worrying about how Sunderland would score goals if Ross Stewart left.

This evening's 3-0 thrashing of a hapless Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough was the third successive away game in which the Black Cats had scored three goals and saw Tony Mowbray’s side move to the top of the Championship scoring charts with 18 goals from their nine league matches.

Yes, breaking down massed defences at the Stadium of Light can still be something of an issue, as evidenced by last weekend’s frustrating home defeat to Cardiff City, but line Sunderland up against an opposition who are willing to give them time and space on the ball, and pockets of space in which to break into, and there is surely no more dangerous attacking unit in the second tier.

They carved Sheffield Wednesday apart at will this evening, scoring three goals in a thoroughly one-sided first half and then rarely getting out of first gear as they cruised through the second, such was the extent of their dominance over a home side that already look bereft of hope at the foot of the table.

Dan Ballard opened the scoring with a powerful header, Jack Clarke claimed a wonderful second with a curled strike that nestled in the bottom corner, and Clarke was at it again as he added a third goal from the penalty spot shortly after the half-hour mark.

Clarke was fantastic – on the evidence of the opening two months of the season, the winger must have a good claim to be the best player in the Football League – but Mason Burstow was equally as impressive in attack, setting up Clarke’s first goal and winning the penalty that led to his second.

Burstow is growing with every game, and unlike Joe Gelhardt, who led the line in the second half of last season without ever looking like a natural number nine, the Chelsea loanee looks ideally suited to playing as the lead striker in this Sunderland team.

Admittedly, it helped both Clarke and Burstow that they were playing against a team, and club, in Sheffield Wednesday that is coming apart at the seams. A year-and-a-half has passed since Patrick Roberts’ dramatic stoppage-time goal at Hillsborough secured Sunderland a place in the League One play-off final, and in the intervening period, the two clubs have moved in markedly different directions.

The Black Cats have established themselves as a stable, top-half side in the Championship, while Sheffield Wednesday, for all that they might have joined the Wearsiders in the second tier, are unravelling dramatically as a result of the off-field strife that sees owner, Dejphon Chansiri, threatening to withdraw his funding as he struggles to sell up.

The Hillsborough home support were chanting for the exit of both Chansiri and Owls boss Xisco Munoz within the opening quarter-of-an-hour of tonight’s game, which might have seemed a little premature were it not for the dire straits in which their side already found themselves at that stage. It took Sunderland just eight minutes to score the two goals that effectively put the game to bed.

Ballard claimed the first, adding to this month’s goal at QPR with another excellent headed strike. Alex Pritchard swung over a corner from the left, and while there were a host of Sheffield Wednesday players lining the edge of the six-yard box, none of them showed anything like the kind of determination that Ballard displayed. Muscling his way onto the ball, the centre-half powered a header past Wednesday goalkeeper Devis Vasquez.

That was an ideal start for Sunderland, but things got even better when they doubled their lead just three minutes later. Clarke’s brilliance has been a constant theme in the opening two months of the Black Cats’ season, but even by the 22-year-old’s increasingly remarkable standards, his sixth goal of the campaign was something special.

Picking Burstow’s excellent cross-field ball out of the sky with a sumptuous first touch, Clarke only had one thing on his mind even though he was standing next to the left touchline. Darting inside past two home defenders, he eased the ball onto his right foot before curling a superb low strike into the bottom right-hand corner. As a sold-out Sunderland away end took justified joy in singing, Clarke was tearing teams apart. Again.

He was celebrating again shortly after the half-hour mark, with his third successful spot-kick of the season taking his goals tally to seven and making him the Championship’s leading scorer.

The award of the spot-kick was primarily down to the slickness and speed of thought of Burstow, who bamboozled Owls defender Bambo Diaby as he received a square ball from Trai Hume and spun neatly in the box.

Diaby clumsily brought him down, and Clarke stepped up to calmly roll his spot-kick into the same bottom corner he had found earlier in the half from rather further out.

Sunderland’s dominance was at least partially down to the reluctance of Sheffield Wednesday’s players to even attempt to press the ball, but there was nevertheless much to admire in the slickness of the interplay between Burstow, Clarke, Jobe Bellingham and the recalled Roberts. Given time and space on the ball, this Sunderland side possesses a plethora of creative attackers who can slice teams apart.

They were certainly much too good for a beleaguered Sheffield Wednesday side, whose only first-half effort of note came to nothing when Anthony Patterson tipped John Buckley’s low strike around the post.

Patterson made a much better save as the hosts mounted a rare attack just before the hour mark, parrying a well-struck shot from Callum Paterson, before Bellingham almost added a fourth at the opposite end with a low shot that curled just wide.