Sunderland need a goalscorer and, at Championship level, Daryl Murphy is exactly that. They could not sign him in the summer and paid the price on Tuesday against Nottingham Forest.
It seems bizarre that, in 2017, Sunderland are missing a player like Daryl Murphy.
In the 2007-08 season, with the Black Cats back in the Premier League, forward Murphy scored three times in 28 appearances. A year later he failed to find the net once.
The forward then moved on, forever tainted in the eyes of Sunderland fans by a miserable run of form – so much so that many mocked his move to rivals Newcastle United last year.
And yet, on Tuesday night, Murphy proved Sunderland’s undoing, netting a late winner at the Stadium of Light for Nottingham Forest – his fourth goal of the season.
Murphy has, without a doubt, improved in the last 10 years – he is also exactly what Simon Grayson’s men need right now.
Sunderland were interested in the Republic of Ireland forward when he was leaving Newcastle this summer – according to the Sunderland Echo – but they could not get the deal done and he instead headed for Forest.
The Wearside club failed to bring in any other strikers late in the transfer window, too, and must now rely on Lewis Grabban and James Vaughan until January; the former – the club’s three-goal top-scorer – hobbled off on Tuesday to be replaced by the desperately out-of-form latter.
Murphy would have been the perfect man to bring off the bench in that situation and Sunderland’s failure to fix a return could cost them on more than one occasion this season.
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