Dan Neil fires stark Sunderland AFC warning | OneFootball

Sunderland's loss to Ipswich has inspired comments from midfielder star Dan Neil urging the club's striking department to improve and 'earn the striking shirt'.

Another game at the weekend where the Black Cats have had to rely on Jack Clarke to producing the goalscoring goods passed them by, with the winger opening the scoring at Portman Road; only for the Tractor Boys to turn the game on its head by scoring two to win the game and keep their heads over the water in the automatic promotion places.

Adil Aouchiche missed a glorious chance to put the Wearside outfit in front at 1-1, and that in itself is indicative of how badly Michael Beale needs to fix Sunderland's striking conundrum with just one goal from the front line all season. And Neil has now called on his teammates to step up and be counted as we enter the second half of the season.

What Dan Neil has said about Sunderland's strikers

With a gluttony of chances going begging for the Black Cats in Saturday night's trip to Portman Road, Neil demanded that the strikers stand up to don the red and white shirt if the club are to make the play-offs.

: "It’s just the predicament we find ourselves in. We obviously have brought strikers in over the summer. None of them have hit the ground running but we need to keep getting on to them in training, to keep working hard, keep improving. The shirt is there if they want it. It’s all about whether they want to take it and do the necessary things to improve, get better and show that it’s their shirt.

"For now it’s very choppy-changey. I think the no striker thing is a little bit of a get out. If you look at last year we scored a lot of goals, if you look at this year we’ve scored a lot of goals and played without a striker. It would be nice to have a striker firing and scoring but we don’t want to use it as an excuse because we got in the play-offs last year without a real number nine. We need to take accountability for that as well."

Sunderland's striking crisis

It's not difficult to see where Sunderland are going wrong in terms of their Championship season. They're only outside of the play-offs on goal difference with Coventry having beaten title favourites Leicester and Sunderland having lost to Ipswich at the weekend themselves, but there's still more than enough time to not only mount a comfortable play-off charge, but to sign a new striker themselves.

Whilst the midfield of Jack Clarke, Neil, Jobe Bellingham and Patrick Roberts are all strong names in the creative department, a striker to tuck their chances away wouldn't go amiss. Mason Burstow, Luis Semedo, Nazariy Rusyn and Eliezer Mayenda only have one league goal between them, with that being Rusyn's goal on New Year's Day against Preston.

No team will mount a serious promotion charge if they can't score goals in that regard; last season's play-offs had the likes of Chuba Akpom, Viktor Gyokeres and Carlton Morris who all scored 20 or more goals each, which is lightyears away from where Sunderland's goalscoring contingency is at present.

Michael Beale will know that strikers are needed, and has previous experience as he brought three to Rangers in the summer transfer window despite having two already on the books at Ibrox. But whether Sunderland bring the right man in is a different question, and perhaps some Championship experience will be looked at to fire them to the top-flight.