Tony Mowbray has hinted he would play Sunderland's sole striker Joe Gelhardt in the FA Cup tonight - if that option had been open to him. The Black Cats take on Premier League Fulham at the Stadium of Light in a fourth round replay this evening after the initial meeting between the sides ended in a 1-1 draw.
Sunderland will go into the replay with no out-and-out centre-forward available after top scorer Ross Stewart suffered a season-ending Achilles injury at Craven Cottage, while on-loan Leeds United frontman Joe Gelhardt is cup-tied. If Gelhardt had been available, however, Mowbray would have had a decision to make given that it would have been a risk to play his only fit striker in the cup when an injury could rule him out of crucial Championship games.
In the event, it is not a decision that Mowbray needs to make but he has indicated he would have been inclined to play Gelhardt if he could, pointing out that he played Stewart in the third round of the cup at Shrewsbury Town when at that stage the Scot was Sunderland's only available striker. "We had that decision to make with Ross at Shrewsbury, before Gelhardt came in, and we played him," he said.
READ MORE: Sunderland can pose a threat to Fulham even without a striker insists Tony Mowbray
"I think if you get yourself in a situation where you are trying to protect them all the time and you're not playing them in this game and not playing them in that game because you're being careful… You have to try and build robust footballers, I think.
"I don't want to say 'I played 60 games a season for six seasons on the bounce and we played every three days' because the game was different, the pitches were different, everything was different, I do like the idea of building young, robust, footballers who can play.
"Look at Amad - he plays every minute of every game, never says he's tired, never moans about anything, he just wants to play footy. He just wants to be out there playing, and you could leave him out there all day just kicking a ball about and doing tricks with his mates.
"That's what you want, footballers who just want to play, who are asking 'when's the next game, when can I get my boots on and go again?' That's what I'm hoping we've got, some really athletic, hungry footballers who want to show everybody how good they are."
A home tie against Leeds in the last 16 of the competition awaits the winners of tonight's replay.
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