Ross Stewart's injury is 'probably' the difference between Sunderland arriving at the halfway point of the season in a play-off place rather than where they are in midtable, according to Tony Mowbray. Sunderland have had to muddle through for three-and-a-half months without their star striker - and, while on-loan Everton man Ellis Simms was also sidelined, for seven games with no fit centre-forward at all - after Stewart picked up a thigh injury at the beginning of September.
The Scotland international, who scored 26 goals last season to power the Black Cats to promotion, had scored five goals in the first seven games prior to his injury, and picked up where he left off at the weekend as he made his comeback from the bench and scored in the 1-1 draw at Hull City. Going into Christmas, Sunderland are 12th in the table at the midway point of the season with only four points standing between them and a place in the top six.
And Mowbray, who took over on Wearside at the end of August, believes that had Stewart stayed fit his goal tally would already be in double figures and that would have garnered the Black Cats more points. "I don't know how many games I've had here, but I know that for the vast majority of games we have had no strikers," said Mowbray as he reflected on the first half of the campaign.
