£4m striker Will Grigg hasn’t scored in his last 13 games for Jack Ross’s League One challengers Sunderland.
Sunderland midfielder Max Power has admitted to the Chronicle that he feels plenty of sympathy for goal-shy striker Will Grigg.
Life on Wearside is not getting any easier for a proven League One centre-forward who joined Sunderland from Wigan Athletic for £4 million in the January transfer window (BBC). Grigg has made a mockery of the excitement that surrounded his arrival, failing to score in his last 13 games going back to April’s stunning 5-4 defeat to Coventry City at the Stadium of Light.
Sunderland fans are starting to lose patience and Grigg hasn’t been helped by comparisons with Marc McNulty, who has caught the eye with his movement and work-rate since he arrived from Hibernian earlier in August.
But Power remains confident that Grigg is one goal away from turning his Sunderland career around.
“I feel for Griggy a little bit at the moment,” said Grigg’s former Wigan teammate. “Strikers go through these spells and I think it’s important sometimes to realise that.
“I’ve trained (with him) this morning and he scored umpteen goals and, of course, people will say that’s only training’ but it’s great to see him scoring chance after chance. I know he is only one goal away from going on a run.
“Hopefully everybody sticks with him because a football pitch can be a lonely place sometimes when things are not going for you.
“I think for Will it’s a new experience when you look at the clubs he’s played for are nowhere near as big as Sunderland, and sometimes the price tag doesn’t help because that adds expectation, too.”
A prolific goal-scorer at Walsall and Wigan, Grigg averages over 20 goals a season in the third tier and fired Paul Cook’s Latics to the League One title as recently as 2018.
So it is far too early to write off the Irish international, even if his fire looks to have been extinguished.
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