TONY Mowbray revealed Sunderland put on a special presentation in Ukrainian to help prepare Nazariy Rusyn for his first start for the Black Cats - and saw plenty of promise in the striker's display against Norwich City.

Mowbray has been keen to gently ease Rusyn into life at Sunderland after his summer switch but felt the time was right to hand the frontman his first start against the Canaries - and to give Chelsea loanee Mason Burstow a rest.

"We decided very early that it was time, really, to take the young kid out and give him a breather," explained Mowbray.

"The burden of having to score goals as a young boy coming on loan and not playing at this level before, you can keep giving opportunities and yet ultimately the team has to win and score.

"Rusyn has been brought in, we've paid money for him, he's not an 18-year-old kid, he's a 25-year-old man and we felt he was about ready. He'd had all that training and played some Under-21 games.

"He's here, let's put him on. He was brought here as a striker, not a left winger or a right winger. He was brought here to play down the middle."

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Mowbray also explained the work that had gone in to ensuring Rusyn was well prepared for his full debut - and hinted that the striker will keep his place for next Saturday's trip to Swansea City.

He said: "We had Timur (Tuterov) in all of our meetings this week, who is a translator for him, he's a young Ukrainian player. We even did a presentation in Ukrainian for him so he could understand.

"I'm pleased for him. He worked hard, he grew into the game, he'll be given another opportunity and has to keep trying to grab them. Ideally he scores a goal.

"It is the same for Hemir really. It would have been great if he'd scored one of the chances pretty late on. It would be nice to have the dilemma of a couple of strikers scoring, but that will come. There are lots of games and they're all working hard."