GOALKEEPER Craig Gordon confessed the emotional scenes which enveloped the Stadium of Light at the weekend almost made the players lose their focus.

Sunderland paid their final respects to club legend Ian Porterfield, who lost his battle with cancer last week, prior to the club's clash with Reading.

Ten of the 11 remaining heroes from the Black Cats' 1973 FA Cup final were also among the 39,000 plus crowd to pay tribute to the Wearsiders' match winner against Leeds that day.

And Gordon admitted the highly charged scenes had clearly got to the hosts as they struggled to find their rhythm in the early stages of their Premier League contest with Reading.

The £9m shot stopper said: "We struggled to get our minds on the game in the first two minutes and it was something we spoke about before the game. The good start didn't quite happen and it took us about five minutes to get in the game."

But after the initial stuttering start the home side finally found top gear and put in arguably their best performance of the season.

"It was a hard fought win," Gordon added. "I thought we were excellent in the first half. We passed the ball well and created a lot of chances.

"That is something we have been speaking about because we haven't been creating too many opportunities and we haven't been shooting enough. We rectified that against Reading and we had something like 16 shots on goal."

The catalyst for Sunderland's triumph was clearly Kenwyne Jones.

The former Southampton striker opened the scoring before setting up Ross Wallace to ensure Roy Keane's side chalked up a second win of the new campaign.

And the Black Cats goalkeeper is another one who has joined the growing list of admirers.

"He (Jones) put on a great show," said Gordon of the £6m striker. "He gives us something different. He's a big lad and when you have that you've always got more options. He adds a lot to the team and he scored a great goal."

The 2-1 victory brought an end to the Black Cats' miserable sequence of four consecutive defeats without scoring a goal.

Yet despite the run of losses Gordon says he was always confident the club would soon get back to winning ways and turn the corner.

He said: "We had to take the positives (from the defeats). We didn't play that bad at Manchester United. We took confidence from that game and took it in to the game against Reading and we showed that we can win games at home.

"We take a lot of encouragement from the performance and result. It (the training ground) is going to be a happy place this week - hopefully we can build on that."

Skipper Dean Whitehead, meanwhile, has received some welcome news that he could be back in action by November.

The 25-year-old midfielder was expected to miss most of the season after suffering cruciate ligament damage to his knee. He was expected to have an operation to rectify the problem but a specialist has informed Whitehead that he does not need to go under the knife as the injury is healing well.

The Sunderland manager said: "In the back of our minds, we were always hopeful he might avoid an operation. He's had his leg in a brace and the surgeon said to continue with that and build the muscle up around the knee.

"It's great news because he's a big player for us. If he could be back in November it would be fantastic."

Keane added: "You can see in his body language that he is much happier. No one likes thinking they will be out for months. I've been down that road and you put on a brave face, but you know it's going to be a long road.''