Tony Mowbray could use Jack Clarke in a more central role as he tries to find a Plan B to solve Sunderland's attacking problems in the final two months of the season. With Ross Stewart ruled out for the remainder of the campaign with an Achilles injury, the Black Cats lack an out-and-out striker to give them the option of running in behind opposition defences.
January loan recruit from Leeds United Joe Gelhardt is the only specialist frontman available to Mowbray but he is not the type of striker to run in behind or run the channels in the way that Stewart does to such great effect. Gelhardt has scored once in seven outings so far and is clearly struggling to lead the line alone in Sunderland's current set-up, and that could prompt a rethink with left winger Clarke deployed through the middle - a position he has occupied at various times this season.
Sunderland were hammered 5-1 at home by Stoke City last weekend after which Mowbray admitted he would have played a different way had he had Stewart available. Clarke is no more of a direct replacement for Stewart than Geldhart is, but his pace would bring an extra dimension to the attack if Mowbray opts to change things when Sunderland head to Carrow Road to face play-off contenders Norwich City this weekend.
READ MORE: Norwich boss David Wagner's message to Sunderland ahead of this weekend's Carrow Road trip
"The tactics on Saturday [against Stoke] would undoubtedly have been different if Ross Stewart had been fit and playing down the middle, we would have played longer - either off him into his body, or down the channels for him to chase and run people down, because it would have taken Stoke's press out in one fell swoop," said Mowbray. "Teams with a high press, if you play longer balls against them they can't press because they've got nothing to press.
"We're not stupid, we know that. But we've got Gelhardt at 5ft 7in up front, Patrick Roberts is 5ft 6in, Jack Clarke isn't a header of the ball, so we haven't got a target, we can't release the pressure.
"If you keep on kicking it back to your opponents all game, it makes for a terrible game and that's not how we play football here or how we want to play football here, or how I have tried to coach teams throughout the years. We're trying to play with the players we have got and, as I've said since the day I came in when we were looking to score goals when Stewart and Ellis Simms were injured, we have to find a way.
"Generally we have done alright at that, we have been scoring goals."
While Sunderland have struggled for strikers all season - ten-goal top scorer Stewart has only been fit for 13 games while Simms was recalled from his loan spell by Everton at the beginning of January - they are still the fifth-highest scorers in the Championship, and have scored in each of their last 19 outings in all competitions.
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