Mike Dodds could be about to mix up his front line once again for Sunderland’s meeting with Cardiff City after the international break.
Mike Dodds has so far taken charge of five games as interim coach – starting Nazariy Rusyn once, Mason Burstow once and Luis Hemir Semedo the remaining three times.
With the strikers failing to find the net, Dodds doesn’t seem to be any closer to establishing who his first choice striker could be for the rest of the campaign.
Matters have only been made once by Rusyn’s recent injury, with the Ukrainian likely to have taken his place in the starting line-up after the international break.
Tony Mowbray, Mike Dodds and Michael Beale have all tried to play Jobe Bellingham up top at some point this term, at it has occasionally worked in our favour, suggesting a move further up the pitch could be back on the cards for him in the coming weeks.
However, We Are Sunderland journalist Joe Ramage has claimed that another surprising figure could be handed a start in place of their struggling strikers.
Speaking on We Are Sunderland’s YouTube channel, Ramage said: “‘We’ve spoke about striker stuff on the show and you spoke about Jobe at the weekend, I think that [Bradley] Dack could be one who throws his name into the ring as well, in terms of starting as a false nine, given where we are at with Rusyn’s injury and Hemir’s form. I think that Dack could be someone who might start in there.”
Can Bradley Dack redeem himself in a false nine?
I was one of the people who backed Sunderland when they decided to sign Bradley Dack, despite his struggle with injuries. I thought – Alex Pritchard did it, so why couldn’t Dack?
But, while his injuries have been extremely frustrating, they haven’t exactly been that much of a problem, because I wouldn’t want him near the starting line-up anyway.
The 30-year-old has been incredibly poor since he came in, but I would also put that partly down to Mowbray, whose obsession with the ‘genius‘ led to him playing him as a false nine at the start of the campaign just to fit him in.
He hadn’t really had any pre-season at all and was suddenly being asked to play regular football out of position. It was a recipe for disaster – and now we expect him to do the same again.
While still not great, he has looked a lot better with a striker in front of him, and I doubt he will be delighted by the news that he could be taking on a false nine role yet again. We mays well have ten players on the pitch – though I suppose that is the case with Hemir too.