Swansea City 0 Sunderland 0

Aug 28 2011 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

REMEMBER the film Groundhog Day?

You know, the one where the weatherman played by Bill Murray is doomed to relive the same day over and over again.

Well, after the week he has just endured, Steve Bruce must know how Murray’s hapless forecaster felt.

Because for the third game running it was the same old story for Sunderland.

At Swansea, just as against Newcastle in last weekend’s Wear-Tyne derby and in the midweek Carling Cup defeat at Brighton, Sunderland created a hatful of chances only to draw a blank.

And once again it was £13m record buy Asamoah Gyan who was guilty of squandering the best of them.

Gyan can’t buy a goal at the moment and, with summer additions Connor Wickham and Ji Dong-Won apparently bought for the long-term rather than the here-and-now, that has forced Bruce to go back into the transfer market to try and buy a ready-made goal-getter.

Bruce knows that goals are the difference between Premier League life and death, and that’s why he can’t afford to wait around for Gyan to come good or Wickham and Dong-Won to blossom.

Sunderland need goals immediately, and he has only until the transfer window shuts on Wednesday night to try and persuade Arsenal to part with Nicklas Bendtner, or land either Man City outcast Craig Bellamy or Wolfsburg striker Patrick Helmes.

As Bruce put it, he has ‘irons in the fire’.