Tony Mowbray has a big decision to make over Sunderland's Alex Pritchard amid striker crisis

In saying that, I do believe if there was a fit striker in the squad then at least one of the recent draws would have resulted in three points.

Listen, I know it’s easy to sit here and say the club should have signed at least one other striker in the summer, they should have, but better solutions have to be found in the squad to create more of a goal threat over the next few weeks.

Saturday’s defeat to Swansea, I have to say, wasn’t a huge surprise to me.

The team have been playing okay to a certain extent and point on the pitch but have lacked that real threat in behind and in and around the goal over the course of the past few games.

Unlike the two home draws against Preston and Blackpool, where Sunderland still picked up points due to some solid defensive structure, I felt Swansea in front of their own support would prove to be a more difficult team to shut out.

I felt the team would have needed to score at least a couple of goals to get something out of the game.

This proved to be the case and Sunderland went down to their first defeat in four games. The point accumulation stands at three from twelve and that ain’t great if we are comparing it to the flying start of the campaign.

I think Tony Mowbray may have to look at freshening the team up a bit in the next few games.

Some players are not performing as well as what we saw at the start of the season and that is a slight worry.

Alex Pritchard comes to mind a little bit.

I’m not saying he has been terrible, not by any means, but he is not having the same effect on games compared to what we were seeing from him in the first few months of the season.

He was one of the players of the Championship in the first few weeks of the season for me.

He set his bar pretty high to be fair to him.

It may be a case of giving him a little break on the side to get his juices flowing again.

Like I mentioned last week, I think the lack of a striker in the team is affecting his game more than most as he hasn’t got that focal point to play off when he gets himself in those pockets between the lines.

I’m sure him, more than most, is wishing the two boys up top a speedy recovery.

Club favourite Stephen Elliott writes exclusively for the Echo every week bringing you his expert eye on all things red and white as Sunderland return to the Championship after four years in League One.