Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray has been talking about the delay in bringing in a new frontman
Tony Mowbray admits Sunderland’s ongoing struggle to bring in a striker is proving frustrating – with a loan deal he thought was done last week, now up in the air. The Black Cats boss has twice said that a deal could be complete the next day, the first time a week ago and the second time last Saturday.
But as yet nothing has happened and when asked this lunchtime where the situation now stands, he said he does not know when – or if – that deal will go though, and could only say he remains confident that reinforcements would arrive before the transfer window closes next Friday. “I thought the deal was done, otherwise I wouldn’t have said [last Thursday] it could happen tomorrow,” said Mowbray.
“I’d spoken to the manager [of the player’s club], he told me he was going to talk to the boy, he’d come up and we’d get it done – and then nothing happened. I think what ultimately happened was that they couldn’t negotiate the terms of a new contract, it became complicated and it didn’t happen.
“Whether it is going to happen, whether it never happens, or whether he goes somewhere else now because other clubs are aware he might be allowed to go out on loan, who knows?”
Mowbray did not give away the identity of the player Sunderland are looking at, but he did say last weekend that Fulham’s England U20 striker Jay Stansfield is one of the club’s targets. Asked more generally about the search for a striker to strengthen the club’s options while Ross Stewart and Eliezer Mayenda are sidelined through injury, Mowbray added: “I haven’t got any new information on that.
“We’re all working hard behind the scenes. We’re all frustrated.
“Everybody is working really hard to try and get deals and lots of deals feel like they’re on the cusp. I feel like I’ve sat here for the last three or four press conferences and said tomorrow someone will be in and they haven’t. I don’t tell lies.
“We’re trying really hard to get these deals done and they’re not easy. It’s always time against money.
“As the window rolls down some clubs realise this deal might fall away and then it becomes more urgent. I have to sit here and be confident that by the end of this window we’ll have some strikers in the building and by the end of the international break, the likes of Ross Stewart, who’s out on the grass kicking balls about every day now, who’s to say he’s not about ready.
“The young lad Eliezer [Mayenda] is telling me he’s only two or three weeks away as well.”
