The big Sunderland goals question that Tony Mowbray hopes he now has the answers to

Tony Mowbray says he is hopeful that Sunderland have now got the goals within their squad to try and replicate last season's impressive finish.

Sunderland have scored eight goals in their last two Championship games, and Mowbray can now begin to filter the recruits from the end of the summer transfer window into the squad.

Though Sunderland played much of last season without a recognised striker, Amad scored 14 goals and when fit Ross Stewart's prolific form was crucial to their eventual tally of 68 goals and 60 points.

Mowbray pushed hard for the signing of Bradley Dack not just for his experience but for his goalscoring instincts, while deadline day brought the arrival of two additional centre forwards.

While it will take time to fully embed them into the team, Mowbray is now hopeful that his concern from the initial stages of the summer has now been allayed.

"We've talked about that a lot over the summer," Mowbray said after the QPR win.

"My worry was we were losing 14 goals from Amad - who was going to score them? If you want to finish in the top six, you have to score 60-70 goals across the season.

"We know if he has a good season that Jack Clarke could hit double figures, Roberts can score a few... but we needed more.

"We've signed Burstow now, we've got Nazariy Rusyn who looks fast and sharp who we just need to get up to speed. We've put some attacking players into our team and it gives me the opportunity to play with or without strikers depending on what I feel we need for each game.

"We've got the big lad Luis Hemir as well, who probably should have scored late on there. At the moment, he's working really hard on his fitness and he's learning how to play in our team, but he's going to be a threat because he can hit the back of the net. He's 6ft 4 and can score headers and rifle it in.

"We're working through it together and it's down to me to assess when they're ready to start and when they're not. We've got Alex Pritchard who is generally our first change because he's versatile, he can control the game and put those lovely balls in the box. "Whilst we're getting the other young players in the team up to speed in how the team plays... Mason probably is the first we'll get that opportunity to but he hasn't had much training time yet to understand how we play. It takes more than two training sessions to fit him into our team and pattern of play.

"We'll get there, and hopefully we've got enough players who can make that contribution towards that 60,70 goals we need to get anywhere near where we want to be."

Sunderland are hoping that Dack will be fit to return to the squad at Ewood Park on Wednesday night, and could return to the starting XI in place of Burstow.

While still not fully fit, Mowbray also hopes that summer signing Eliezer Mayenda may be able to make his debut at some stage before the next international break.