Joe Gelhardt on first Sunderland goal: 'It was only a matter of time'

Striker Joe Gelhardt expecting to score plenty more goals for Sunderland.

Michael Graham | Feb 21, 2023

Joe Gelhardt on first Sunderland goal: 'It was only a matter of time' /

Joe Gelhardt admitted he should have more goals to his name by now after opening his account for Sunderland at Rotherham.

The January signing got the Sunderland goal in the 2-1 defeat at Rotherham, with it coming in his first start for the club.

However, now he is up and running, the on-loan Leeds man is confident that he can ‘kick on’ from here and become a regular scorer for the Black Cats between now and the end of the season.

“I think it was a matter of time,” Gelhardt told safc.com about opening his Sunderland goalscoring account.

“I had a lot of chances and probably could've score three or four by now if I was more clinical, but I'm happy to get off the mark now and hopefully it's the first of many.

“Every game I'm trying to score goals to help the team so hopefully this kicks me on now.

“We know how we want to play. We're all confident players and on another day we come away with three points. It just wasn't our night.

Sunderland’s biggest problem on the night was the slow start, with them going in at half-time already having to chase the game.

They improved a lot after the break though, and Gelhardt says they will just have to take those positives into next week’s game at Coventry.

“I think we had a slow start as a team,” he said. “We grew into the game, especially in the second half and we had a few chances.

“We could have scored but that's football and sometimes it doesn't go your way, but I think it's a performance that we can build on for the weekend.

“Take the positives out of it, learn from the negatives, and hopefully grab three points on Saturday.”

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Published Feb 21, 2023

MICHAEL GRAHAM

Michael Graham is a professional sports writer with more than ten years of industry experience. After pursuing football writing by helping establish the Roker Report Sunderland AFC fansite, Michael moved to Planet Sport to cover football. Michael has since worked on many of the sports sites within the Planet Sport network, including Football365, TEAMtalk and Planet Football before leaving to join 90min. As well as football, Michael is an accomplished tennis writer and has been regularly featured on Tennishead, TennisBuzz and Tennis365. It is football that is his first love, though, with Sunderland AFC his particular passion. Contact: michael@buzzpublishing.co.uk