MICHAEL Bridges may well have the Sunderland fans in his pocket, but Mick McCarthy is proving somewhat harder to please.

The striker, who signed for his former club on a free in September after unsuccessful spells at Leeds and Bolton Wanderers, is slowly but surely making his way towards the starting line-up.

North Shields-born Bridges went on in the 62nd minute on Saturday in place of Marcus Stewart and immediately sought to put his mark on the game in an energetic cameo.

Having not scored for four years since hitting the target for Leeds in a 1-1 Premiership draw with Everton in May of 2000, he had a chance to end the drought but conspired to put a rebound from a Liam Lawrence piledriver over the bar from inside the box. Then after making space for himself, he let fly from outside the area only for his shot to skew well wide. That he did not hit the target seemed to matter little to the spectators and McCarthy was quick to acknowledge the fact.

"He always makes an impact with the crowd," he said. "He played a great one-two and he is running through, threatening the goal and he missed by about ten yards and got a great cheer. If that was Jeff Whitley they would have booed the arse off him, if it had been Robbo (Carl Robinson) they would have given him dog's abuse. If it had been anybody else except him and maybe Julio (Arca) . . . only they could pick (the fans') pockets and they'd still cheer.

"Great, he wants to enjoy that while it lasts because with chances like that he wants to put them in the net."

The comments were somewhat tongue-in-cheek and McCarthy was keen to restore the balance.

"It's not easy coming on in a game when it's tight," he said. "When he did settle down he showed his quality. There was one great ball across to Liam Lawrence that was terrific, but as I said to him and to Chris Brown, if you are going to do your tricks do them in the 18-yard box, the final third.

"I am pleased with him. I said to him yesterday he has been a bit unfortunate not starting but he has certainly had an impact on us all."

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