Tony Mowbray's honest response to inevitable Sunderland January striker question after Millwall draw

Tony Mowbray says he doesn't expect Sunderland to go back into the market to strengthen their forward line in the January window.

Mowbray candidly admitted that he does not yet know what the club's plans are for the month, and what the club's budget will be. Sunderland's quarter of summer arrivals up front are all yet to get on the scoresheet this season, and Mowbray said after the 1-1 draw with Millwall that he does not feel they are yet ready to impact his team at Championship level.

After that admission, Mowbray was inevitably asked if he felt there would therefore be any new arrivals in the January transfer window.

“I don’t know if we will be signing a striker,” he said. "I just coach the team.

"I do get asked of course, and sit in recruitment meetings but we haven’t had one yet about January. But I think the club will say to me ‘we have Mayenda, Rusyn, Hemir and Burstow on loan from Chelsea, so you have four strikers, what do you want another striker for’?

“That’s probably how I think it will go. But that is OK, that is fine, we will just have to keep working with them. We show them their clips after every game to see what they could have done better. They are here to learn and grow and hopefully they will become major players.

“I am not sure they are ready to quite help us win games like at Millwall with all the possession we have to win 3-0. We haven’t got that striker at this moment.”

The decision will at least in part be decided by Mason Burstow's future. As is standard practice with all loans, his season-long switch will be reviewed by all parties in January, with Chelsea almost certainly holding a recall clause.

Sunderland are hopeful that Nazariy Rusyn will be fit to return to the squad when West Brom visit the Stadium of Light on Saturday lunchtime, having missed the last two Championship fixtures with a minor groin strain. Eliezer Mayenda will also be in contention to start, having dropped to the bench on Saturday as Mowbray manages his workload.