Sunderland boss Steve Bruce admits Sebastian Larsson is now a big influence on their attacking threat.

The Swedish winger has scored three goals already this season and has sharpened the side's cutting edge at set pieces with his consistently reliable delivery.

"That's one of the reasons why we went all-out to get Seb in the summer," Bruce told SAFC-TV. "Until now, we haven't had a specialist dead-ball taker while I've been here.

"You can see the advantages of having Seb in the team - all of a sudden we're a major, major threat from set pieces.

"That was evident in a tight game on Saturday when we scored from a set piece and it showed that the value of Seb is enormous.

"He doesn't only give the team a high level of all-round ability but also this wonderful ability of being able to deal with dead-ball situations.

"That's such a huge part of the game today."