The Premier League striker Sunderland must win the race for this summer

The search for a striker is getting so desperate that we’ve got Mackems speaking French on the timeline. Fully grown men opening new tabs, heading to Google Translate, typing in their questions, and then copying and pasting the results into reply threads beneath tweets from continental journalists called Pierre and Sebastian in the vain hope of gleaning any kind of clue as to what on earth is going on.

In fairness, the desperate measures are understandable. It has now been over 1,200 days since Sunderland last signed a striker who could justifiably be deemed ‘first team ready’. That man was Ross Stewart, and to contextualise the period of time since, we were all still in the midst of a fully blown Covid lockdown when he inked his contract. It has, in other words, been a while.

At the time of writing, the most likely candidate to drag the Black Cats out of their centre forward purgatory remains Alexandre Mendy, currently on the books at Ligue 2 outfit SM Caen. Hence the French. The 30-year-old has reportedly made it clear that he would like to move to Wearside this summer, but matters have been complicated by none other than Kylian Mbappe. Honestly. The Real Madrid icon recently completed a takeover of Caen, and has supposedly been pumping the brakes on a prospective exit as he aims to persuade the Guinea-Bissau international to stay in Normandy for a little while longer.

Whether he succeeds or not remains to be seen. Certainly, there is still every chance that Mendy will be unveiled in red and white stripes between now and the end of the month. But even if he were to escape Mbappe’s clutches this summer, you suspect that Sunderland might still need more besides.

If preseason has hinted towards anything, it is that Luis Hemir could be punted out on loan, that Nazariy Rusyn is still busy without consequence, and that Eliezer Mayenda is not quite the finished article just yet. Based on those impressions, and the assumption that Mendy is eventually prised away from Caen, the Black Cats may very well head into the new campaign with just three senior strikers; two, if you regard Mayenda as a work in progress; one, if your faith in Rusyn wavers.

Which brings us to a name that we haven’t heard around these parts in quite some time; Jay Stansfield. Sunderland were heavily linked with the Fulham prodigy last year, but ultimately missed out on his signature, and had to watch in mild anguish as he skipped off to Birmingham City and scored 13 goals during their doomed relegation campaign. A forward hitting double figures - imagine that. The Blues had wanted to secure the 21-year-old’s services on a permanent basis, but their drop down to League One, coupled with an apparent eagerness on Marco Silva’s part to keep him at Craven Cottage, has seemingly put pay to those designs.

Now, however, the Evening Standard report that Fulham may have had something of a change of heart, and could be willing to sanction another temporary departure for Stansfield before the transfer window closes. A sale has not been ruled out either, and the player’s academy product status would mean that any received fee will be regarded as pure profit from an accounting standpoint, but the understanding is that a loan is very much the preferred outcome of those in charge of such things in West London.

And if these mutterings are to be believed, then Sunderland should be all over Stansfield like rats on a landfill. The starlet has already proven that he has the chops to mix it in the cut and thrust of the Championship, while the Black Cats have a decent track record of taking young players from the Premier League and coaxing the best out of them. The less said about Mason Burstow, the better.

In an ideal world, then, this is the approach that Sunderland would take to their centre forward conundrum; one experienced striker, like Mendy, to shoulder the burden of their attacking ambitions over the coming months; another younger, flightier option, like Stansfield, to rotate and chip in and generally make a nuisance of themselves when called upon. It all makes an awful lot of sense, which, knowing Sunderland, probably means it won’t happen. Still, it’s nice to dream.