What is The Answer to Sunderland’s Striker Problems

Early in the January transfer window, Ellis Simms was recalled to his parent club, Everton due to their own struggles.

During our F.A Cup 4th round fixture against Fulham, Ross Stewart pulled up with an injury that will see him miss the remainder of the season.

The Black Cats brought in, young Joe Gelhardt on loan from Leeds, but he has failed to impress so far.

In my opinion, he looks more like a second striker, as I think his build up play seems quite good. And it showed when he created Jack Clarke’s goal against Bristol City last Saturday.

Can we continue to play this way, as we are doing much better than what we all expected?

Or should we start looking at other options to try and go that bit further?

Here are what I think our options are.

Stick With Gelhardt

Joffy is only a young lad, and he might just need to get his first goal to get his season off and running.

He has shown glimpses of what he can do, he has just failed to provide that killer blow.

Do we stick with him up top on his own and hope he will come good?

Sign a Free Agent

This is the option that I think is least likely.

If you think about it, these players are free agents at this point in the season for a reason, usually because they aren’t good enough, or they are injury prone.

Put Another Player Up There With Gelhardt

In my opinion, I think Gelhardt would benefit by having more support up there with him.

We have several talented wingers/attacking midfielders that could maybe do the job.

I think it could be worth a try, trying Jack Clarke up there with him and bring in Alex Pritchard to play in behind them, with Roberts and Amad on the wings.

Jack Clarke can be very frustrating at times on the left-hand side, but he has proven many times this season, that given the opportunity, he will finish.

At the end of the day, Tony Mowbray knows what is best and he is doing an amazing job, but it is worth the conversation!