Tony Mowbray confirms new Sunderland injury in honest assessment of striker dilemma

Tony Mowbray admits he is facing another selection dilemma at Millwall as the club's striking struggles go on.

Nazariy Rusyn missed the 2-1 defeat to Huddersfield Town due to a groin strain and the head coach has warned that he has to carefully manage Eliezer Mayenda's game time.

Mayenda made his first start on Wednesday night and though he has shown much promise in his early appearances, he is yet to get on the scoresheet. None of Sunderland's four striking additions in the summer window are yet off the mark.

"It depends who is fit and available," Mowbray said of Saturday.

"Nazariy Rusyn was injured tonight with a groin strain. We've talked about Luis Hemir as someone who needs to get up to speed. I think he needs an opportunity, I think that's at home against the right team. He doesn't knock on my door every day asking why he's not in the team wanting to know why he's not playing because I think he can feel it in training, he has to get his aerobic capacity up so he can fit in the team.

"Mayenda has not played a lot of football so we have to be careful in these three-game weeks. He's played 60,70 minutes tonight so we have to be careful talking about a couple of days later. We'll assess who is going to fit and available in the next day or two and pick a team to try and go and win at Millwall."

Sunderland continue to struggle to convert their dominance of possession into goals, and while Mowbray is confident it will eventually turn, he admits there is much work to be done with a young group of forwards.

"We've scored three in our two previous home games, and generally since I've been here we've found a way to score goals - a lot of the time last season without strikers," Mowbray said.

"This year we've got young striker and we're trying to get them up to speed. Mason played seven or eight and then Nazariy had three or four on the bounce.

"We hope one of them catches fire and can starting banging them in, we feel as if we do create chances as a team. It's not just pointing the finger at the centre forwards, we have to get goals from all over the pitch. Generally we've done that in the last fifteen months, it's just dried up a little bit at this moment. We've had 49 shots in our last two away games and haven't scored. I think if your stats stay that high.. it will turn. We have to keep working on what we do, how many times tonight did Clarke get past the full back tonight, put in the box.. is someone getting across the defender, getting to the back stick, waiting for a cutback, bursting into the six-yard box?

"We have to keep working on that, and it's the eights as well as the strikers. We have to get into those killer zones. It's not as if we don't get behind defences or create chances, we just have to keep working with them. I'm wary of talking about youth but it's a fact, but we are a young team and especially the strikers who we've brought in."