Tony Mowbray felt his Sunderland side got what they deserved against Norwich City.

The Black Cats went into the game on the back of three consecutive defeats, but Mowbray showed his players clips from the 1-0 loss at Leicester four days earlier in a bid to bolster confidence – and it worked.

Hwang Ui-jo put City ahead before Trai Hume, Dan Neil and Jack Clarke sealed the 3-1 win.

Mowbray said: "I think it was the right result for the way the game went.

"It felt a little bit here we go again when they scored, I don't think they'd been in our half up until that point and yet we're a goal behind.

"We showed great character to get in front before half-time, with some really good, positive front-foot play. It was important for us, I thought it was harsh on us to have lost three games - there were some okay performances in there.

"You have to take it on the chin when you lose and what was important for us was to keep the confidence up. We showed them a lot of clips of the Leicester game and the rewards of playing on the front foot. We did that well today, suffocated them for long spells and it wasn't really until the last 15 that they asked questions of us, and then in that period we could have scored more goals on the break."

Mowbray said he had a word in Pierre Ekwah’s ear at half-time after his role in the City goal – Ekwah stopped, expecting an offside flag for Gabriel Sara, who was clearly offside but didn’t touch the ball, allowing Kellen Fisher to take possession and set up Hwang.

"I had a chat with Pierre, not an angry one, but just a chat about what happened,” said Mowbray. "He's waiting for the linesman to put his flag up and the full back comes bombing past. He wasn't offside and he got caught. For me, it's fine, it's a lesson.

"I didn't knock too much confidence and belief, I think they felt they were on top and dominating. We did a lot of work on breaking down deep blocks and we did. It would be nice for our strikers to score, but we got it done. We deserved it, our performances have warranted wins and today it definitely did."