Tony Mowbray will continue to rotate his strikers as he waits for one to 'catch fire' and deliver the goals Sunderland need to revitalise their play-off challenge. The Black Cats will go into December without any of their four specialist strikers - Luis Hemir, Nazariy Rusyn, Eliezer Mayenda, and on-loan Chelsea man Mason Burstow - having found the target.
In the early part of the season, Portuguese youngster Hemir was given a a chance before Burstow arrived and was then given a run of games. Then it was Ukrainian Rusyn's turn and he started four games in a row, but a groin injury meant he missed last night's home defeat against Championship strugglers Huddersfield Town which meant Mowbray handed Spaniard Mayenda his first start now he has got over his injury problems.
Yet still the goals have failed to materialise for Sunderland's strikers. "Burstow played seven or eight games on the bounce, Rusyn has played three or four on the bounce, last night was Mayenda's opportunity," said Mowbray, following the defeat against the Terriers.
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"We hope that one of them catches fire and can start banging in the goals. For centre-forwards, their job is to put the ball in the back of the net.
"I'm not just pointing the finger at the strikers though, we create chances as a team and sometimes we have to score goals from all over the pitch and generally we have done that opver the last 14 or 15 months. It just seems to have dried up a little bit at this moment."
While the goals from other areas have not dried up completely - centre-back Luke O'Nien scored against Huddersfield - they have slowed to a trickle. The Wearsiders have now scored just eight goals in their last eight games compared to 18 goals in the previous eight matches, and Mowbray knows he needs to find an answer quickly.
He said: "It's not as though we are free-scoring at the moment and, moving forward, we have to try and find an answer otherwise the goals for will become a problem. In the previous two home games [against Birmingham City and Norwich City] we scored three in each, since I have been at this football club we have generally found a way to score goals even last season when we had a lot of time without any strikers.
"This year we have got young strikers and we're trying to get them up to speed. In the last two away games [at Plymouth and Swansea], we had 49 shots at goal.
"I think if your stats stay that high - I'm not sure how many shots we had last night, I haven't looked - it will turn."