HE might have the youngest squad in the Championship by a considerable distance, but Tony Mowbray feels his Sunderland players have reached the point where there should no longer be a constant focus on their age.

The Black Cats side that started last weekend’s Championship draw with Millwall had an average age of just 22.4, a figure that would have been even lower had 32-year-old Danny Batth not been lining up at centre-half.

Eight members of the starting line-up were aged 22 or under, with four of the five substitutes that came onto the field at the Den yet to celebrate their 22nd birthday.

On Wednesday, as Sunderland lost to Fulham in an FA Cup fourth-round replay, the replacement of 20-year-old Joe Gelhardt with 19-year-old Abdoullah Ba meant the average age of the Black Cats’ line-up dropped again, with 15-year-old Chris Rigg continuing his remarkable emergence as he came off the bench in the closing stages to make his first senior appearance at the Stadium of Light.

Mowbray has embraced the challenge of leading such a young, inexperienced squad, but with his side challenging in the top half of the Championship table, the Black Cats boss is keen to shift attention away from an obsession about youth.

“I’m very conscious of trying to lose the narrative that we’re a young team,” said Mowbray, whose side return to action with a weekend home game against Reading. “I think they’re good enough. You can see that. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 20 or 30 – if you can compete and you can run, pass, shoot and tackle, then you’re good enough.

“As long as the fans can see a team that’s fighting, and they feel as though we’re going in the right direction, then hopefully they’ll be happy.”

While Mowbray is not too concerned about the youthfulness of his squad, he admits he is more worried about the lack of depth within his first-team group with 17 Championship matches still to play.

A flurry of long-term injuries means his squad is stretched in a number of key areas – most notably at centre-forward and in central midfield – and the Black Cats boss accepts he is going to have to protect some of his key performers in the next three months.

The Northern Echo: Tony Mowbray issues some touchline instructions during his Sunderland side's defeat to FulhamTony Mowbray issues some touchline instructions during his Sunderland side's defeat to Fulham (Image: Ian Horrocks)

The World Cup break means the fixture schedule is especially intense throughout the spring, with Sunderland facing midweek league matches in three of the next five weeks.

“With 17 games to go, we still have an ambition (to make the play-offs) because we’re in touching distance, but the reality is that we’re very short on numbers and do not have a deep squad,” said Mowbray. “I think you’re going to have to go into a squad with these games because in the next couple of weeks, we have midweek matches.

“We’ve got to go Saturday-Tuesday. The effort and work ethic you saw from the team against Fulham, they’ve got to reproduce that every three days for the next three or four weeks, and it’s not easy.”

The hope is that Sunderland’s squad depth will gradually improve with each transfer window, and over the last couple of years, the club’s recruitment team have done a decent job of strengthening the ranks.

The failure to add a centre-forward on deadline day last month was a major disappointment, and means Leeds loanee Joe Gelhardt will have to negotiate the remainder of the season as Sunderland’s only recognised centre-forward in the absence of the injured Ross Stewart.

As was the case on Wednesday, there will be times when Mowbray has to put square pegs into round holes in the final third, and his hope is that by the start of next season, the obvious weaknesses within the current squad will have been addressed.

“This window was a bit frustrating on the last day, but we’ve got some really talented players and the recruitment department deserves huge credit,” he said. “To have Patrick Roberts, Jack Clarke and Amad Diallo at this football club is a huge credit. Aji Alese, Dennis Cirkin – some really super young players. If we can keep that over the next few windows, then we’re going to be a strong team.

“We’re on a journey to get to where this club needs to get back to, but it might take a bit of time while we get another transfer window and another transfer window.

“Somewhere down the line, the club will be rammed full of really good players and it won’t matter which ones we pick – we’ll be too good for some teams in the Championship. But at this moment, we’re working really hard to compete.”