Tony Mowbray has had his say on his striker options after bringing in four new attackers in the summer.
Speaking to Chronicle Live, the Sunderland boss has hinted at when Nazariy Rusyn, Eliezer Mayenda and Luis Hemir Semedo could all be given a chance in the starting line-up.
The Black Cats were in desperate need of some new forwards in the summer, with Ross Stewart joining Southampton and Joe Gelhardt returning to Leeds United.
Mowbray welcomed the trio, as well as Mason Burstow, on board. However, all four players are still waiting their first senior goal for the club.
Burstow has been a regular in Sunderland’s side since joining on loan from Chelsea, while Rusyn and Hemir have largely been limited to appearances off the bench. Meanwhile, Mayenda is yet to make his debut after picking up a hamstring problem shortly after he arrived on Wearside.
Mowbray opted to drop Burstow and play without a No.9 against Stoke City, though he may have to revert to the drawing board after an underwhelming performance at the bet365 stadium.
The Sunderland manager has praised all four of his new signings and has offered fans a hint of when they could all be given a chance – with some likely to be waiting longer than others.
“Mason’s the one that we’ve gone to so far, really, because he’s athletic, he can run and he closes people down well,” Mowbray said.
“I think he’s still a boy though, and he has to learn about double movements in the box and how to find space and make clever runs in behind. I think he’s trying to take all that on board, but he’s still learning. We show him a lot of video stuff back, and he looks you in the eye and takes it in.
“Hemir is different. We’ve talked a lot about Hemir in relation to the physical aspect of the game. So much of modern-day football is about what happens when you don’t have the ball – how you press and close teams down.
“I think because of the support-base and who we are here at Sunderland, we need to play on the front foot and we need to get our fans wrapped up in the game. We need to be aggressive, and at this moment, Hemir needs to keep developing his aerobic capacity to be able to help our team.
“With Rusyn, he’s not really a young boy – he’s 24 or 25 – but he’s come from Ukraine and, in my mind, he’s still a little bit in the headlights. He still doesn’t really know where he is, almost. He’s finding it difficult, but you can see he’s got talent and he’s sharp and clever with the ball. At some stage, I’ll just throw him in, but ideally you don’t really want to be just throwing him in, you want him to learn how we play and what we do. It’s a difficult scenario.”
Can Eliezer Mayenda be the striker Sunderland have been waiting for?
Tony Mowbray is clearly very excited about the arrival of Eliezer Mayenda, with the youngster really impressing in training.
After Mayenda featured in the U21s friendly against Hibernian, Mowbray said: “It was his first game yesterday, and he was looking forward to it.
“As I’ve said before, he has been exciting in training. He needs to stay fit now, he needs to play some games, and hopefully he can play again on Friday against Spurs and then hopefully he might be in the mix for sitting on the bench.
“He is different to the players that we’ve got, he’s left-footed, dynamic, can beat a man, he has speed and power, he looks exciting, but we need him to stay fit and give him a chance.”
Mowbray likes to praise all of his players, but there is clearly something different in the way he speaks about Eliezer Mayenda.
The 18-year-old seems to be arguably the most exciting out of the young forwards we have signed and could provide something we have been lacking up front so far.
The likes of Burstow and Hemir are out-and-out No.9s, who are struggling to get the ball as they wait in the box. Perhaps we will benefit more from a forward who can run with the ball and provide a similar attacking threat to Jack Clarke.