PHIL PARKINSON admits he could not have wished for a better start to life on Wearside as his first home match as Sunderland manager ended in the club’s biggest victory for more than a decade.

The Black Cats thrashed Tranmere Rovers to rack up their first five-goal victory since Roy Keane’s side clinched the Championship title with a 5-0 win at Luton Town in 2007.

Having watched his new side crash to a 1-0 defeat at Wycombe Wanderers at the weekend, Parkinson had demanded a reaction as he made his bow at the Stadium of Light.

His players responded, with goals from Duncan Watmore, Chris Maguire, Lynden Gooch, Will Grigg and Luke O’Nien drawing a line under the Jack Ross era and lifting Sunderland to seventh position in the League One table.

“It’s important, I feel that,” said Parkinson, who was only appointed as Ross’ successor last Thursday. “You always want to get off and running as a manager, and to do it in the way we’ve done it tonight is obviously a great boost for everybody

“I’m so pleased for the lads because they worked exceptionally hard and they earned that win. I’m just pleased because we’d spoken about getting the balance right between being in possession and keeping the ball, but being effective as well and making the opposition back four work. I felt we did that tonight, and looked a very dangerous team at times.

“It was incredible. The supporters were great. They were right with us from the start, I could feel it, and ultimately the supporters want to see effort and commitment, but they want to see goalmouth action as well. I felt we gave them that tonight and they responded brilliantly for us.

“It can only help with the confidence. Results haven’t been as good as expected recently, so it was very important to get back to winning ways. But it is about performance level too, and I felt the lads did exactly what we asked them to do. There were some very good individual performances tonight.”

Grigg and Maguire both turned in impressive individual displays, but the Man of the Match honours went to Watmore, who opened the scoring with a neat first-time finish before setting up Sunderland’s next two goals.

The winger has endured an injury-ravaged time over the last three or four years, with successive knee ligament injuries sidelining him for the best part of two seasons.

Last night’s appearance was only his third in the league this campaign, but having also played for an hour of Saturday’s defeat at Adams Park, he has taken a major step forward in terms of proving his fitness and durability.

“He’s in a good place at the moment,” said Parkinson. “It’s been tough for him, I know all about his injury problems. But right from my first day last Thursday, I was so impressed with him as a player because he makes those runs in behind and stretches the opposition back four.

“I think that’s key. Teams want you to play in front of them, but we have to get the balance right where we’re stretching the game as well. I thought Griggy did that well tonight, and Duncan as well. That will do him the world of good.”

Parkinson does not want to take any unnecessary risks with the 25-year-old, but he also wants to treat him as a fully-fledged member of the senior squad. As a result, there is chance Watmore could be selected for his third outing in a week when Sunderland travel to Shrewsbury Town at the weekend.

“We brought him off after 60 minutes on Saturday, and I think he’s done 70 today,” said Parkinson. “It was important that we got him off, and we’ll see how he recovers. If there’s any doubt, we wouldn’t put him at risk, but he’s done two games now and that’s massive for him.”

The one downside to the evening was the ankle injury that forced Gooch to hobble off at the start of the second half, but an early assessment suggests the problem is not too serious.

“He’s twisted his ankle, but the physio has just told me he doesn’t think it’s too bad,” said Parkinson. “Obviously he wasn’t able to carry on, and we certainly won’t going to be taking any risks with him because we lost Charlie at the weekend and we can’t afford to lose any more because we’ve got a lot of games coming up.”