Tony Mowbray is refusing to use Sunderland's lack of strikers as an excuse after the Black Cats drew a blank for a second successive game. The Black Cats are still operating without a centre-forward, with leading scorer Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms sidelined through injury.
And they followed Saturday's goalless draw against Preston at the Stadium of Light with another goalless game against Blackpool on Wearside. But despite the lack of goals against the Seasiders, Mowbray was pleased with his side's performance - particularly in the first half - and the back-to-back clean sheets they have kept.
Sunderland's lack of firepower is bound to be the post-match talking point, but Mowbray does not want that to become the narrative. "We are playing without our main striker [Stewart], who is second-top scorer in the league, and when you look at all the data he is right up there at the top of every stat and he hasn't played for us for three or four games," said Mowbray.
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"He is a loss, but as I constantly say I don't want to make him an excuse. We have to get on with it and find a way, but unfortunately in the last two home games we haven't scored so it is an easy narrative to talk about not having strikers.
"But we could easily have scored today, and we should have scored today."
Sunderland dominated the first half against Blackpool but could not convert their chances into goals, with Elliot Embleton hitting the woodwork while on his first start Amad Diallo wasted a golden opportunity when he failed to get a shot away inside the penalty area after being put through by Patrick Roberts. Mowbray said: "The level we want to play at is what you saw in the first half.
"We played the ball forward, got turned, drove into space, got beyond, put the ball in the box, and then the intensity when we were out of possession to win the ball back was everything that we worked on. It looked as though in the second half we ran out of legs because the intensity wasn't there.
"You hope changes spark it up, yet they didn't really spark it up tonight. They have in the past, bringing on some of these young lads that we've brought in, but not tonight.
"We could have won it right at the death, Jack Clarke had a header from point blank range saved. I hope the fans can see what we're trying to do.
"You have to accept that at times in the game you are going to be on the back foot against teams in the Championship because they have individuals that can play decent football and you have to show resilience."
Of Diallo's chance, he added: "We need him to shoot more - that's what I tell him every single day. It's almost as though he wants to score a brilliant, perfect, goal where he just walks it in.
"It's like he wants to feint to shoot, sits somebody down, skips past the next one, feints to shoot, the goalie dives and then he rolls it into the opposite corner and we all go 'wow!' He was in the middle of the box on his favoured left foot, ten yards out, he just had to smash it in.
"He has to learn and we have to keep telling him. That's why he is out on loan fro mhis parent club because they need to teach the players that when you get a chance at the top level, you have to take it.
"You don't have to look good, you have to be good. You are judged by the stats, the goals and the assists."
Blackpool came on strong in the second half and Sunderland had to defend for their lives at times, with Anthony Patterson called upon to make a series of saves. But Sunderland held out to claim their third clean sheet in four games.
Mowbray said: "It became difficult in the last half-hour, but it was amazing to see us defending set plays like we did and putting our bodies on the line, because we've all been around football for a long time and you can lose those kind of games 1-0 from a set-play. So while we're frustrated that we didn't score a goal or two in the first half, we played some amazingly good football.
"We'll put the point in the bag and while we're frustrated that - like on Saturday - we didn't score a goal, the clean sheet was a positive."
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