EXCLUSIVE: Former Sunderland striker wants to see Nazariy Rusyn 'take more responsibility'
![EXCLUSIVE: Former Sunderland striker wants to see Nazariy Rusyn 'take more responsibility' EXCLUSIVE: Former Sunderland striker wants to see Nazariy Rusyn 'take more responsibility'](https://www.si.com/.image/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/MjAzODU1MzIyNDQ2NTcxMDAz/nazariy-rusyn---sunderland-struggles.jpg)
Don Goodman says former club Sunderland need a new striker, but they also need Nazariy Rusyn to take more responsibility when he plays.
Rusyn is the senior centre forward at Sunderland following a summer move to the north east, but he has only scored one goal so far.
That has been a product of limited opportunity, but a feature of games that the Ukrainian has played have been incisive runs he's made off the ball that have been ignored by the midfield.
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The temptation is to blame the midfield and coaches for that, and they do have a role to play. Goodman though, who was a striker in his playing days, says the bulk of the responsibility lies with Rusyn - although the language barrier could be proving especially problematic.
Speaking to Sunderland Nation via casinoalpha.com., Goodman said: “When I made runs and the ball never come, I made sure the people that didn't pass to me knew that I was not happy, and probably in ways that you wouldn't get away with in this day and age!
“It's up to the coaching staff. It's up to Rusyn to grow. The last thing I did before every game was I went to our midfielders, whoever they were - in my case at Sunderland, Gary Owers, for instance - and I'd say to him: ‘look, I'm going to pretend I'm coming short, suck him in, then I'm going to spin in the channel, clip it over the top and I'll be in one -on -one.’
“But I had that conversation at West Brom, at Wolves, at Sunderland, everywhere I played with whoever the midfield players were.
“So Rusyn has a little bit of a responsibility. But Man City - I bet you never thought I'd be mentioning Man City in the same breath as Sunderland - Man City had a season and a half or two seasons without a genuine number nine, very similar to Sunderland.
“Then all of a sudden, Erling Haaland comes in. If you watch Manchester City in those early first 10, 15, 20 games, he was making runs and the ball wasn't going [to him].
“You know, it's not dissimilar, but then they find a way, they get used to the runs and then they recognize if we slot in there, he's going to score.
“Now it's something that they would look for a lot more often. I mean, he was going through games and only touching the ball sort of 15, 20 times. All right, two of them would be goals, and of course Rusyn isn't Erling Haaland, but it's not dissimilar.”
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