Sunderland winger Romaine Mundle has been named in the EFL’s official Championship team of the week following his match-winning turn against Burnley on Saturday afternoon.

The 21-year-old was drafted into Regis Le Bris’ starting XI to replace Jack Clarke following the wide man’s transfer to Ipswich Town, and repaid the Frenchman’s faith with a well-taken first half strike that ultimately decided the contest in the Black Cats’ favour. That 1-0 victory was enough to take Sunderland to the top of the table, with nine points from their opening three matches and a trio of consecutive clean sheets.

In their explanation for including Mundle in this week’s side, Whoscored – who compile the stats behind the EFL’s XI – said: “Youngster Romaine Mundle was the star player as Sunderland claimed an impressive 1-0 win over Burnley on Saturday. The 21-year-old scored the first half winner with one of five shots, while he also made two key passes and two successful dribbles to land a WhoScored.com rating of 8.13 [out of 10].”

Despite being the only representative from Wearside in the team of the week, Mundle’s was one of several eye-catching performances from Sunderland’s young side on Saturday, and the player himself is optimistic about the Black Cats chances in the second tier this season. Speaking after the final whistle, he said: “I know it’s early days but the togetherness we show and the game plan that’s set for us, we know what to do. So I think we can go very far. It’s all early days and just taking it step by step at this moment. “The negative factor is that everyone’s going to probably look at this team is that we’re all young. We can get pushed over and stuff like that but I think everyone just runs for each other. We showed a willingness to just get the job done as well but we showed that in training as well so we demand a lot from each other in training. I always say to myself age is just a number in football so as long as everyone’s doing well on the pitch it doesn’t matter about the age.