Patrick Roberts' honest Sunderland assessment of his own performances and club's new strikers

Patrick Roberts says Sunderland’s young forward players have bright futures ahead of them but admits they could need time to bed in.

The Black Cats signed Nazariy Rusyn, Hemir Semedo, Eliezer Mayenda and Mason Burstow over the summer, yet all four are still searching for their first goal since moving to Wearside. Sunderland’s players have also tried to adapt after playing without a recognised centre-forward for much of last season, while Ross Stewart, who joined Southampton in the summer, scored 10 times in 13 league appearances when he was available.

When asked how different it’s been playing with a new striker in the team this campaign, Roberts told the Echo: “I think it’s just because they are very young and haven’t got a lot of experience playing a lot of games. It’s tough to throw a lot of them in and there are so many options there it’s hard to kind of pinpoint someone to kind of do that.

“Maybe you are hoping for someone to kind of set it alight and score one, two, three and you can work from there. It’s not come to fruition that way and they haven’t scored yet so it can be quite hard on them and hard on the team, maybe you can sense that.

“They are all good players and top strikers but it’s just maybe getting that first, second goal is kind of crucial. That will obviously come from me and Jack (Clarke) trying to help and the lads behind them. 

“Obviously we had Rosco last year and he’d been here a couple of years. It’s bedding in new players and it takes a while. You’d hope they’d hit the ground running but it’s quite hard to ask of a young player. I guess that’s what you get. You get that hunger, aggression to show that on the pitch but it hasn’t fallen for them yet and hopefully it can change soon.”

At 26 Roberts is one of the more experienced players in Sunderland’s young squad, while the winger is also aware he's yet to score this season. When asked if he’s taken on more of a leadership role this campaign, Roberts replied: “I think you have to. I feel like I’ve been around for ages now and have seen a lot of players in my career and I’ll see a lot more. You just try and help young players as best as possible and try and get the best out of them because they are only young.

“They have bright futures ahead of them but at the same time you want to win games and it’s having that balance of encouraging them and telling them when it’s not going so great, and the same with other players for me. I’m having a sticky patch at the minute, haven’t scored just yet but I will always work hard and give 100 per cent when selected and that’s all anyone can ask of me and I can ask of myself.

“When it clicks it should come and the same with the strikers. When you get one then the rest start to fall. We have to do it at both ends of the park and score goals and not concede them and we have to work on that as a team.”