Sunderland boss drops strong selection hint as he outlines striker strategy moving forward

Tony Mowbray looks set to hand Nazariy Rusyn another start when Sunderland face Swansea City on Saturday afternoon, but has told his other strikers that he will be giving them more opportunities to impress.

Rusyn made his full debut in the 3-1 win over Norwich City last weekend, with Mowbray saying it was time to give the summer signing a chance to impress after a period of adjustment and building his match sharpness. Mowbray also felt it was time to give Chelsea loanee Mason Burstow a break, with the youngster impressing out of possession but struggling to get on the scoresheet.

Though it has been a positive start to the season for Sunderland, that they have not registered a goal from a striker has been one area of concern. Mowbray says that is likely because all of his options, who arrived in the summer transfer window, are to some degree finding their feet at the club.

Eliezer Mayenda will travel with the group to South Wales this weekend after missing the opening months of the campaign due to a hamstring problem.

Mowbray has heavily hinted that he will now look to give Rusyn a run in the side in a bid to help him find his feet and get on the goal trail, but has told Burstow and Luis Hemir to be ready to seize their chance from the bench. He also says both will get chances again in the starting XI somewhere down the line.

"Nazariy just brings a different aspect, really," Mowbray said. "He wants to run in behind, he's short and sharp with those little bursts that he's got, just a bit different from our other strikers.

"At this moment, he's filling that spot in the team for us, we won the game that he played in and there's every chance he's going to continue in that vein. Let's hope that we can win again and that he can keep growing. All strikers know that their job is to score goals, but I don't want to put too much pressure on them.

"Nazariy is experienced, he's been around the Ukrainian national team and he understands that he has to do his job and hopefully help the team get a win.

"It's very difficult to just change what you have been doing and with Mason, we've been asking him to play in the pockets. We've been playing without strikers [for a long time] them players are coming into deeper positions, sucking the centre-halves out to play one-twos to go wide and break the box. Maybe that's not Mason's natural game, maybe it's more natural for him to stay down the middle and wait for the chances and run in behind. We were asking him to play in the way that we'd built the team, really. Maybe it was a bit foreign to Mason, when you watch his clips for Chelsea U21s he is running in behind a lot and slipping it past the goalkeeper. He doesn't seem to have had many of those opportunities here and maybe that's because of how we've been asking to play.

"With Rusyn, we'll have to wait and see how he goes," Mowbray added.

"He's working hard in training and getting up to speed, and I think it's a process with him in terms of teaching him how we need him to press, how he forces the opposition into certain areas so we can win the ball back and then have an overload. He's learning that as we go along and of course there's the language [barrier] as well. Let's wait and see how he performs over the next half a dozen games.

"Hemir isn't far away from being from getting more starts either. He's a very, very young boy who has needed to get up to the professionalism of what we do. I think it's coming for him, he's undoubtedly a talented football player and hopefully somewhere down the line we've got riches in terms of strikers trying to outscore each other.

"At the moment, they're finding their feet. I know Nazariy isn't young but he's finding his feet, he told me the other day that he thinks we would challenge for the Ukrainian league - that's how impressed he is with the standard and the work ethic and the training.

"Mason's a young boy, he understands and yet I would expected him to be disappointed of course. I've spoken to him about the positives he's brought to the team and he just needs a break, someone to square a tap-in for him. He's going to get opportunities off the bench and I have to make those calls, it'll depend on the game in my opinion. If we're dominating, we might want a big guy in the middle of the box and so it'll be Hemir. Or we might need that mobility and someone who can threaten in behind, so we'll go with Mason.

"It's going to be nice for me to have those choices moving forward, because when I look at my board [of players] it's starting to become more difficult - which is good."

Mowbray is beginning to get a number of selection dilemmas both with his starting XI and the bench in attacking areas, with Bradley Dack and Adil Aouchiche both now back in full training and available for selection. He has one place on the bench to fill after Chris Rigg departed for the U17 World Cup.