Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray issues clear verdict after opening-day defeat to Ipswich Town

Tony Mowbray says he is confident his Sunderland team will get stronger after their opening-day defeat to Ipswich Town, but has again stressed the need for more options in the final third of the pitch.

Mowbray's side started brightly against Ipswich but fell behind to goals from Nathan Broadhead and George Hirst either side of the half-time interval.

Trai Hume's red card left the home side with a mountain to climb but they rallied impressively, with Dan Neil pulling a goal back and then hitting the post with seconds of the contest left to play.

That meant it was a hugely frustrating opening day for the Black Cats, though Mowbray felt their were positives to take form large aspects of the performance.

"I think we respect that they're a decent team, they're well structured with good rotations," Mowbray said.

"They're confident and won a lot of games last season.

"For the first fifteen minutes I think it was one-way traffic and then they worked their way into it. I think days like today, it's about cutting edge. I don't want to keep banging the drum but I do think we need more options at the top end of the pitch and I know the club are working really hard to do that.

"I just saw Kevin Phillips on the tele there and if you had him up front today, I think we win the game comfortably. That's football and we have to roll with it. Ipswich worked really hard and dug in. We put a great effort in, we just fell a little bit short.

"I think we're going to get stronger. If I sit here and think, seven weeks down the line we could have Ross Stewart playing down the middle, Bradley Dack behind him with Clarke, Roberts... it starts to look pretty formidable with players then to come off the bench. I think you then score more than the one goal we did today.

"I think there was enough there today to say that we're going to be fine, we're working hard, the crowd were with us - they can see that the team are giving everything they've got.

"We feel a little bit hard done by with the sending off but the officials are being put in an almost impossible position at the moment. "We'll have to get on with it and see how that irons out over the next few months."

Mowbray said that Sunderland were one of many clubs across the pyramid finding it difficult to land striking targets, but remains confident that the squad will be reinforced over the coming weeks.

Sunderland face Crewe Alexandra in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night before facing Preston North End at Deepdale next weekend.

"We're trying really hard and we've got bids in for players, but you've seen even some of the huge clubs in the Premier League aren't finding it easy to sign strikers," Mowbray said.

"As some of the clubs in the Premier League are finding, if they are going to get a striker they are going to have to pay a ridiculous amount of money.

"Well in this league, some of the strikers are going for ridiculous amounts of money and we don't have ridiculous amounts of money. Instead of the first choice one that you want, you might be looking at the third or the fourth choice.

"Hopefully there'll be some more attacking options in the building over the next couple of weeks."