TONY Mowbray has been riding the managerial rollercoaster for long enough to be able to deal with the inevitable highs and lows, but will have needed to call on all of his experience to deal with the extremities of the last week on Wearside.

After the joy of the superb display and victory against Middlesbrough came the Corry Evans hammer blow. That despair was eased by the delight of winning the battle to sign Joe Gelhardt, the striker wanted by most of the Championship – only to see the star man who the Leeds forward has been brought in to assist stretchered off 24 hours later.

Devastated Ross Stewart had his head in his hands as he was carried off at Fulham. You suspect Mowbray will have followed suit behind closed doors on Saturday night. His team have been in fine form, key men are on song, the January window has been smartly negotiated, everything was coming together for Sunderland – and then, as Mowbray put it, “something popped”.

The Black Cats will discover the extent of Stewart’s injury early this week but Mowbray wasn’t optimistic, admitting he feared the striker could be facing a “long, long time” on the sidelines. Sunderland started the month looking for someone to support Stewart; they could well end the month looking for someone to replace him.

The capture of Gelhardt now looks even more important. Imagine if Sunderland hadn’t been successful in tempting the 20-year-old to Wearside. They’d have suddenly found themselves heading into the last 48 hours of a January transfer window without a senior striker on their books. And yet Gelhardt, regardless of his quality and potential, can’t do it alone. He’ll need help.

A return for Ellis Simms would be the best possible scenario for Sunderland. It’s not overplaying it to say the call made by Sean Dyche on Simms’ short-term future in the next 48-72 hours will be decisive in determining how the second half of the season plays out for the Black Cats. No pressure, Sean.

Mowbray admitted Stewart’s injury overshadowed his side’s display and result at Craven Cottage, which was such a shame because Sunderland were fantastic, a performance that deserved the headlines that were instead sadly dominated by Stewart’s setback.

Sunderland’s starting XI was young and bench was even younger. Among the substitutes was 15-year-old Chris Rigg, 16-year-old Thomas Watson and four other teenagers. As one reporter put it to Mowbray in his post-match press conference, at times on Saturday it looked like a game of “lads vs dads”. And how the lads impressed.

“The overriding thing today was the positivity of an extraordinarily young team that was on the pitch,” said Mowbray.

“Once Ross went off there was only two players over the age of 22 or 23 on the field and they played against Fulham who beat Chelsea here a few weeks ago and are riding high in the Premier League.”

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Marco Silva rested Aleksandar Mitrovic, Willian and a few other key men but they were replaced by internationals. The home boss must have realised early on that his stars would be needed from the bench.

It was a brilliant, breathless cup tie played by two teams whose only intention was to attack.

Sunderland enjoyed a dream start when Jack Clarke nabbed the ball off Issa Diop and kept his cool to slot home, but the goal didn’t change the plan. There was no sitting back.

The closest Fulham came to a first half leveller was an Andreas Pereira volley that was brilliantly stopped on the line by Dan Ballard, before a second half that was more basketball than football, end to end and played at such a pace. But even after Tom Cairney’s leveller on the hour-mark, Sunderland kept pushing for a winner, though could well have lost it had it not been for the brilliance of Man of the Match Anthony Patterson, who made a string of brilliant saves.

While Silva turned to Mitrovic and Willian, Mowbray introduced schoolboy Rigg, and the history maker had the ball in the net in stoppage time, only to be denied by the raising of the offside flag, the correct call.

“What a story that would have been,” said Mowbray.

Instead, sadly, the story was Stewart.