WHO needs a centre-forward? On a night when Sunderland ended up without a single fit striker on their books, they found themselves celebrating a new goalscoring hero and revelling in a formation that enabled them to repeatedly slice Reading apart as they claimed their biggest away win of the season.

Patrick Roberts more than compensated for the injured Ellis Simms as he scored two goals in the space of three first-half minutes, with his close control and vision as he cut in from the right a stand-out feature of his best display in a Sunderland shirt.

Jack Clarke added a third goal as the Black Cats continued to pour forward in the second half, and this was a night when all of Sunderland’s midfield youngsters caught the eye. You can’t win anything with kids? You can if they’re playing like this.

Losing Simms was Sunderland’s worst-case scenario at kick-off, with Ross Stewart still at least a month away from a return, but the Everton loanee lasted just over half-an-hour before he was forced from the fray.

He injured his foot in an innocuous-looking incident when his attempt at a first-time strike was blocked, and while he attempted to soldier on after a bout of treatment, he was quickly forced to admit defeat as he trudged towards the touchline with frustration etched on his face.

Tony Mowbray must have been fearing the worst, but the Sunderland boss has spent the last week imploring his midfielders to start breaking into the box. On the evidence of what happened next, Roberts in particular must have been listening to his instructions.

Two minutes after Simms’ departure, the winger received the ball on the touchline following a pass from Elliot Embleton, who was Mowbray’s choice to bring on from the substitutes’ bench.

There was still an awful lot to do, but after breezing inside from the flank, Roberts opened up his body to curl a superb strike past Joe Lumley’s right hand and into the far bottom corner. It was the 25-year-old’s first goal since his unforgettable strike in the second leg of last season’s play-off semi-final at Hillsborough, but it was followed by a carbon-copy strike to double Sunderland’s lead just two minutes later.

Again, Embleton was the architect, picking up the ball in midfield and immediately looking to thread the ball forward with an urgency and intent that has often been missing in his absence. Dan Neil played an important part in the move, dummying the ball on the edge of the area to enable it to reach Roberts.

It was a trickier chance second time around, with Reading defenders much closer to Roberts, but after dancing around two opponents, Sunderland’s new goalscoring star caressed another excellent finish into the same corner he had found two minutes earlier. Mowbray was talking up Roberts’ goalscoring capabilities on Tuesday, yet even he cannot have envisaged such an immediate response.

In fairness, the double success came at the end of a half that Sunderland had dominated prior to Simms’ departure, and that saw Reading’s only meaningful opportunity come to nothing on the stroke of half-time when Tom Ince’s low shot was saved by Anthony Patterson.

With Simms off the field, Sunderland spent the second half playing with Alex Pritchard as a false number nine, flanked by Roberts and Clarke, and with Aji Alese and Lynden Gooch playing as full-backs in a back four.

Danny Batth was outstanding at the heart of that back four, winning his physical battle against Lucas Joao, and as a result, the Black Cats continued to look the more threatening side, with Roberts coming close to claiming a hat-trick nine minutes after the break as he cut in from the right again, only for his 20-yard strike to be directed too close to Lumley.

With Roberts, Clarke and Pritchard continually changing positions, the Black Cats might not have had a central striker, but they boasted three forwards all posing a threat and their third goal in the 69th minute was a thing of real beauty.

Pritchard sent Dan Neil down the right, he picked out Clarke, and after stepping inside his marker, the latter found the net.