WHEN Mick McCarthy spent the summer assessing just exactly what his Sunderland side needed to stay in the Premier League, a striker that could deliver 15 goals must have topped his list of priorities.

With that in mind he spent £2.9m of his transfer kitty on Jon Stead and Andy Gray from Blackburn Rovers and Sheffield United respectively, and brought in Anthony Le Tallec on loan from Liverpool.

With half the season gone the three have a combined total of three Premiership goals between them, and the Black Cats have now gone ten hours and 38 minutes of football at home since they last scored from open play.

During Saturday's morale-sapping defeat against Everton, McCarthy took the extreme step of removing the former Blades' striker from the action with four minutes of the first half remaining.

No injury or illness to Gray, just the manager deciding he wasn't performing well enough.

With Le Tallec in tandem with Stead, Sunderland created around eight good chances after the break but still couldn't find the net.

For all his endeavour and effort, Stead remains woefully short of confidence in front of goal after 17 straight games without finding the net and Le Tallec's talents are too often left on the training ground or reserved for his excursions with the France Under-21s.

Without a goalscoring striker, Sunderland will struggle to reach even the miserable return of 19 points they achieved in season 2002-2003, let alone the 35-plus points they'll need to challenge for the fourth-bottom spot.

McCarthy will no doubt be privately assessing the first half of the season amongst the squad after today's trip to Fulham, but he was revealing nothing about his innermost thoughts.

"I've learnt loads, absolutely loads (during the season)," said McCarthy. "About the players, about myself, about the Premier League, about the difference in the leagues but I'm not going to give a self-assessment because I don't do it - not publicly.

"I can't get them to play any better, I can't get them to work any harder and if that's not good enough then I can't do anything else I'm afraid.

"That's me doing the best I can and that's they're doing the best they can for me and I've no arguments at all."

The defeat to a 92nd-minute Tim Cahill header was made even worse by the number of chances the Black Cats squandered after the break.

McCarthy's job remains to keep the spirit in the camp as high as possible - but admitted the defeat hurt more than most.

"You feel battered and bruised," he said. "It's tough when you get to that stage and you should have won.

"It feels very difficult to get up but I've said to them afterwards 'I know it's hard but would it have made a difference or is it going to change the course for us if we got a point out of it?'

"What we have to do is continue playing like that - the same style, the same effort, the same work-rate the same good football and we'll pick up points and we keep doing exactly the same things."

After a turgid opening half Sunderland's new fitness specialist Alan Pearson went to work - bringing the players out early after the interval for a half-time warm-up.

Like on Boxing Day at home to Bolton the effect appeared marked and Sunderland enjoyed probably their best 25-minute spell of the current campaign.

It started when Nuno Valente denied Le Tallec with a last gasp-challenge after man-of-the-match Liam Lawrence and Julio Arca had combined well.

Nigel Martyn then expertly palmed away a Le Tallec header low to his left after Lawrence delivered his best cross of the day.

Lawrence fired wide after Le Tallec found him on the edge of the box, and Tommy Miller should have done better with a free header from a Lawrence corner.

After Stead fired wide twice - once after Lawrence refused to throw the ball back to Everton after Martyn threw out thinking Le Tallec was injured - Arca missed a great chance and the Wearsiders were denied a penalty after an apparent Cahill hand ball, it seemed somehow inevitable that the Toffees would score.

The introduction of Duncan Ferguson after 67 minutes forced the Sunderland defence to play a bit deeper and every set-piece appeared to induce panic in the Black Cats' defence.

One corner almost brought a goal for substitute Marcus Bent and when former Black Cat Kevin Kilbane delivered in the 92nd minute, Cahill pounced after losing his marker Dean Whitehead.

McCarthy said: "Dean Whitehead (was supposed to be picking him up) but he was arguably the best player on the park and has been for us, so what am I going to do? Beat Deano up? No!

"He's beating himself up and I feel sorry for him because he's been fantastic. He's held his hands up.

"It's very easy at times to steam into them because they've lost but all I can ask is that they play like they did.

"There's only so many things you can say as a manager and as a coach. I don't want to dress the performance up as if it makes up for getting beat because it doesn't - not for me, not for anybody.

"But if we do lose then I'd sooner lose playing like that, having a go and really outplaying the opposition."

l Gary Breen picked up his fifth yellow card of the season and will miss the FA Cup game against Northwich next weekend.

Score: Sunderland 0 - 1 Everton.