Michael Beale outlines his Sunderland striker selection plan in pivotal week for play-off push

Michael Beale says he will continue to rotate his Sunderland striking options but says there will be plenty of opportunity for Nazariy Rusyn to impress.

Rusyn scored his second goal for the club last week to rescue a point against Middlesbrough, and his came from the bench has strengthened his case considerably for inclusion against Plymouth Argyle on Saturday afternoon. It's a huge week for the Black Cats, who then travel to Huddersfield Town on Wednesday night and Birmingham City just a few days later.

Beale says his selection will be based on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, but made clear that Rusyn would get more chances to build on his crucial goal.

"In the front three, he is right at the forefront of my thoughts," Beale said of Rusyn.

"He's a bit of a hybrid really, he's not just a number nine. It'd be unfair to say that he's just a nine because he can dribble, he likes to pull out wide and his energy is really good. These next three games you'll certainly see Rusyn playing, yeah.

"With three games in a week, you might have to share the load and I'm not ruling out Luis Hemir in that picture, either," he added.

"It might be that they have to share the load, someone starts and then someone else gets the benefit of their hard work [off the bench] and then vice versa. You want forwards to pose different questions at times, as well. Mason did really well playing a bit deeper against Stoke, allowing Jack and Abdoullah to get much higher up the pitch. It didn't work as well as we'd have liked against Middlesbrough, and then Naz came on and I think that you saw with Middlesbrough pushing, the extra space really helped him. He likes that space to run, so we need to use everybody and I think that's been the conundrum for everyone here this season - how do you get the best of these guys? I think we're slowly starting to see positive signs and I'm optimistic about what I've seen from these guys."