Sunderland have one major ‘worry’ following three consecutive defeats in the Championship.
That’s according to Scott Wilson of The Northern Echo, who has claimed that Tony Mowbray should be concerned by his striker options so far.
Sunderland have spent most of the year without a prolific No.9, with Ross Stewart picking up a serious injury back in February that he is yet to recover from.
While the Scot was expected to return to action on Wearside soon, he instead opted to join Southampton over the summer.
There was a lot of panic in Sunderland, but the Black Cats eventually snapped up four forwards in Mason Burstow, Luis Hemir Semedo, Nazariy Rusyn and Eliezer Mayenda.
The former has taken up a regular position in Mowbray’s starting line-up but is close to completely losing his spot after failing to score in seven starts, while Hemir and Rusyn‘s game time has been very limited since their arrivals.
Meanwhile, Mowbray has tipped Mayenda to have a huge impact on the Championship outfit, but he has only recently returned to training after picking up an injury just days after signing for the club.
Sunderland have now only scored one goal in their past three games and have been heavily relying on Jack Clarke to put the ball in the back of the net, with the winger netting eight goals so far.
However, Mowbray certainly can’t rely on Clarke all season and should be concerned by his forwards’ struggles so far.
Speaking in a video posted to his X account last night, Scott Wilson said: “The worry would be that we’re now almost in November and still, none of Sunderland’s centre-forwards – at least their natural centre-forwards – have scored a goal yet.”
Can anyone comfortably claim Sunderland’s striker spot this season?
This is a huge worry for Sunderland and will most likely be the reason that the club fail to win promotion to the Premier League this season.
The Black Cats showed how brilliant they are on the ball against Leicester and probably would have taken a result back home if they had had a decent striker up top.
Mowbray clearly has a problem with Hemir and would rather play without a striker tan give him a chance, while Rusyn understandably needs time to settle in.
But I am beginning to feel like we will turn to Mayenda when he is fully fit, with Mowbray heaping praise on him on multiple occasions so far.
There will be a lot of pressure on the Spaniard to perform, but it is going to be an incredibly frustrating campaign if he is unable to reach expectations.