TONY Mowbray has told his misfiring Sunderland side that the goals will soon come if they keep doing what they're doing - though the head coach now faces another big striker call ahead of Saturday's visit to Millwall.

The Black Cats recently failed to score at Swansea and Plymouth despite having 49 shots on goal in those two games, and they only  managed to hit the net once from 17 efforts in last night's defeat to Huddersfield.

The primary issue for Sunderland is the fact none of their strikers can find form. All four recognised frontmen in the squad are still without a single goal this season, with Eliezer Mayenda the latest to be handed an opportunity. He made his first start against Huddersfield, with Mowbray revealing Nazariy Rusyn was missing after suffering a groin strain.

It's not clear at this stage whether Rusyn will be back for Saturday's Millwall trip and Mowbray must decide whether to tinker up-top or give Mayenda a run in the side.

"It depends who's fit," said Sunderland's head coach.

"Rusyn was injured tonight, he had a groin strain. Hemir is a young boy who needs to get up to speed. Maybe he needs an opportunity but maybe at home against the right team. He doesn't knock on my door every day wanting to know why he isn't playing because I think he can feel it in training.

"Mayenda has not played much football, he's been injured for a long time. We have to be careful in these three game weeks, it's not easy to play again so soon. We'll assess who is going to be fit and available."

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Asked whether his side in general are suffering from a lack of confidence in attack, Mowbray said:  "I don't think so. I've said to the team in the last two away games we had 49 shots at the opposition goal. If the stats stay that high it will turn. We have to keep doing it. We have to keep working on it. All the ideas and knowledge is there.

"It's not as if we're free scoring at the minute and moving forward we have to find an answer otherwise the goals for will be a problem.

"The last two home games (before Huddersfield) we scored three in each and since I've been in this club we've generally found a way to score goals, last season a lot of the time without strikers.

"This year we have young strikers and we are trying to get them up to speed. Burstow played seven or eight games on the bounce, Rusyn played three or four, tonight was Mayenda's opportunity.

"We hope one of them catches fire and can start banging them in. Centre forwards, their job is to put the ball in the back of the net. We feel as though we do create chances but we're not pointing the finger just at the centre-forwards. The goals just seem to have dried up a little bit."