IF Mick McCarthy wants to know where it's all gone wrong this season then a cursory glance in the striker department should find him all the answers he needs.

In the summer he spent £2.9m of his transfer kitty on Jonathan Stead from Blackburn Rovers and Andy Gray from Sheffield United, also bringing in Anthony Le Tallec on loan from Liverpool.

Former manager Peter Reid's Premier League millstones were Tore Andre Flo and Marcus Stewart. For McCarthy read Stead and Gray.

In 27 games Stead has failed to find the net, Gray has one in 22 appearances and the 'prolific' Le Tallec has four in 25 games.

At worst McCarthy must have hoped for at least one of his purchases to reach double figures, but five goals in a combined 74 appearances is the stuff of nightmares.

Added to that are the continued injury problems of Stephen Elliott and Kevin Kyle - the pair started a game together for the first time in Sunday's 2-1 defeat at Manchester City - and it's been a catalogue of problems in attack all season.

The two clubs who accompanied the Black Cats into the Premier League last summer, West Ham and Wigan, boast forwards who have thrived .

Marlon Harewood and Jason Roberts have 13 goals each this term, and Bobby Zamora and Henri Camara have also weighed in with a few.

Stead regularly receives praise for giving his all, but at £1.8m you expect a striker's all to involve finding the net occasionally.

Gray has clearly failed to make the step up from Championship football, and Le Tallec has an unpleasant habit of looking completely disinterested in playing for Sunderland.

If the season has been a disaster on the playing front then the forward line has verged on the catastrophic.

The blame must ultimately rest at the door of McCarthy. He may have wanted to bring in Darren Bent, Heidar Helguson or Kenny Miller but he decided Gray and Le Tallec fitted the bill.

Last season he was happy enough to take the praise for putting together a squad of bargain buys who won the Championship, so he must be man enough to admit he bought very very badly.

The summer promised much to the Sunderland fans, and the board delivered on handing cash to their manager.

That may be a moot point - McCarthy and the board have differing opinions on the cash being enough - but the return on what he has spent has been disastrous.

At the end of this season when players are offloaded the Black Cats' strikers will hardly boost the transfer kitty for whoever becomes the next permanent manager.

If the Sunderland board want to raise funds then there appears little point in expecting anything above a 50 per cent return on McCarthy's £2.9m.

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