Tony Mowbray strays away from using Sunderland “excuse” after goalless draw with Blackpool | OneFootball

Sunderland made it two 0-0 draws in two games last night, with the Black Cats playing out a goalless draw at home to Blackpool.

The Wearside club have been without their two main striking options over the last few weeks, with Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms, who had both made an excellent start to the campaign, being on the road to recovery.

Sunderland currently sit in seventh place and are a point outside of the play-off positions as things stand.

Addressing the situation at hand, and being reluctant to use their striker situation as an excuse after their recent goalless affairs, Tony Mowbray told Chronicle Live: “We are playing without our main striker [Stewart], who is second-top scorer in the league, and when you look at all the data he is right up there at the top of every stat and he hasn’t played for us for three or four games.

“He is a loss, but as I constantly say I don’t want to make him an excuse. We have to get on with it and find a way, but unfortunately in the last two home games we haven’t scored so it is an easy narrative to talk about not having strikers.

Quiz: Did Sunderland win, draw or lose the last time they played at these 18 stadiums?

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Selhurst Park?

Win Draw Loss

“But we could easily have scored today, and we should have scored today.”

The verdict

Of course, playing without a main striker, who has done nothing but score goals since his arrival, will act as a blow.

And when you add the fact that their other striking option is out with injury, then it only adds to the difficulty of the situation.

Sunderland have played some excellent football over the last few weeks, and whilst Mowbray is reluctant to use this situation as an excuse, it has had a big part to play.

However, football is about finding solutions to problems that inevitably will come up and that is what the Black Cats boss will be trying to address whilst the pair are unavailable.