Nathan Broadhead hopes he has timed his comeback from injury to perfection as Sunderland look to secure a play-off place in the final month of the season. Broadhead was the Black Cats' hero when he came off the bench to score a 95th minute winner against Gillingham at the Stadium of Light at the weekend, lifting the club back into the play-off spots.
The 23-year-old on-loan Everton striker suffered a hamstring injury just before Christmas and, while he returned to action at the beginning of March at Charlton, he aggravated the problem and spent a further month on the sidelines. But Broadhead is confident that he is now fully over the injury and can now help Sunderland book a play-off slot over the remaining six games of the campaign.
"The thing with a hamstring is you have to be patient and I'm not really a patient guy with injuries," said Broadhead. "Maybe I came back maybe a bit too early [against Charlton], I don't know, but I felt good in my head at the time but my body never agreed with it.
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"You learn from these mistakes and hopefully from now on it can be a good run with me in the team and scoring goals. That is what I was thinking of when I was injured - coming back here.
"The club has believed in me and kept me on so I need to repay them. I felt great [against Gillingham]. I felt sharp.
"Another week in training will do me the world of good."
Sunderland looked to be on course for a second successive goalless draw as the clock ticked down against Gillingham and the game went deep into injury time. But Broadhead was on hand to meet Elliot Embleton's cross, and direct his header into the far corner.
It was a goal that produced an explosion of joy and relief in the stands, and Broadhead took off his shirt as he raced to celebrate in front of the North-West corner. He said: "I let my frustration out!
"It’s been a long road to recovery so I took it out on the celebration. That's two this season with my head so hopefully I can get more headers."
Broadhead's return came in the wake of Jermain Defoe's retirement and Benji Kimpioka's move to Swedish side AIK over the last 10 days, and it means that boss Alex Neil now has another attacking option to help share the goalscoring burden with 22-goal top scorer Ross Stewart. "Ross and I are good pals off the pitch and we give each other confidence, so Saturday showed we work together well," said Broadhead, who has now scored nine goals in all competitions this season.
"I need to do the job, keep positive and get there. There's pressure to score goals but we are strikers at the end of the day and that's our job."
With ex-England man Defoe only arriving at the end of January, Broadhead had only very limited time to train alongside him. He said: "I had a couple of sessions with him, like three or four sessions so I didn't really work with him.
"I would have liked to work with him and learn from him."
Sunderland are currently sixth in the table, and they face one of their play-off rivals on Saturday when they go to Oxford United - the club they replaced in the play-off places at the weekend. Broadhead said: "I don't really look at the table. Maybe some people look at it but I don't.
"The next game is Oxford and we need to try and win that game and every game. That is the mentality of the lads going into the run-in."
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