A flurry of three goals in 15 minutes meant Sunderland climbed back into the top six and made it two wins in a row for Michael Beale's team at the Stadium of Light.
A goal from Ryan Hardie gave the visitors the lead going into the break but goals from Pierre Ekwah, Jack Clarke and Jobe Bellingham in the second half ensured we put three points on the board.
Sunderland hosted a tricky Plymouth Argyle side who had only succumbed to one defeat in their last nine Championship fixtures. Surely relegation wouldn't be too much of a concern for the Devon side then as they sat eight points above the bottom three before kick off. Therefore their goal for the remainder of the season would be to break into the top half of the league, an impressive feat for a newly promoted team. The game definitely had another level of importance to the home side though, with Sunderland one point outside the play off places, a win against a team in the bottom half would be expected if we were to keep any chance of going up. Michael Beale had bought his tenure some time with a comfortable win over Stoke and a hard fought draw away to Middlesbrough in the last two games and it could be said that a noticeable amount of Sunderland fans had even begun to warm to him.
SUNDERLAND XI: Patterson, Hume, Ballard, O'Nien, Hjelde, Neil, Ba, Ekwah, Roberts, Clarke, Rusyn
Subs: Bishop, Pembélé, Seelt, Bellingham, Mundle, Aouchiche, Rigg, Semedo, Burstow
PLYMOUTH ARGYLE XI: Hazard, Phillips, Gibson, Galloway, Mumba, Gyabi, Forshaw, Miller, Whittaker, Hardie, Devine
Subs: Burton, Sousa, Pleguezuelo, Scarr, Edwards, Sorinola, Randell, Waine, Issaka
Ex-Sunderland man Bali Mumba had the first opportunity of the afternoon, his header went wide inside the first minute.
Abdoullah Ba was shown a yellow card for a high footed foul on the other former Sunderland player in Plymouth's squad, Brendan Galloway.
Despite looking well offside, Ryan Hardie was able to get a shot away that Anthony Patterson parried. The ball bounced awkwardly inside the six yard box but we managed to clear it away.
A free kick from just outside the box was fired straight into the wall by Jack Clarke. Morgan Whittaker (the joint top scorer in the league) went into the book for the foul on Pierre Ekwah that led to the set piece.
Clarke then did well to force Conor Hazard to make a save towards his bottom right corner via a shot from outside the area.
Ashley Phillips became the next man in the book for dragging back Ba before Nazariy Rusyn had a couple of shots from within the box blocked.
Then out of pretty much nothing the away side took the lead. Whittaker played in Hardie following a Sunderland corner and the Scotsman took advantage of Patterson being far away from his goal line. Our goalkeeper definitely the one to blame for that one.
A third yellow card for Plymouth was shown for another foul close to the edge of the box, the guilty party this time around was Mumba.
At half time it was Sunderland 0-1 Plymouth Argyle. Although we had been dominant we had failed to take advantage. We hadn't taken our chances and been punished as a result. A similar performance in the second half would probably result in at least a draw though.
The equaliser came in the 52nd minute. We were awarded a free kick at a distance probably too close to shoot so Patrick Roberts knocked it to Ekwah and he scored his fourth of the season when the ball found the bottom right corner.
Not long after we completely turned it around as Clarke had another moment of individual brilliance. He managed to get around Mumba and unleashed the ball into the back of the net.
Substitute Jobe Bellingham made the Sunderland fans inside the Stadium of Light a lot more comfortable by scoring our third of the day. The England youth international fantastically curled the ball into the top right corner. Dan Neil was awarded the assist.
Darko Gyabi earned himself a yellow card for dragging back Clarke as he charged forward. Plymouth looked tired and uninterested by this point.
A nasty sliding tackle into Dan Neil saw Matthew Sorinola booked. The game had largely lacked efforts on goal since our third.
FULL TIME: SUNDERLAND 3-1 PLYMOUTH ARGYLE
