Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray has revealed that he will still be without the services of Pierre Ekwah and Bradley Dack for tomorrow’s Championship clash with Sheffield Wednesday.
January signing Ekwah picked up a dead leg in the win over Queens Park Rangers earlier this month, whilst Dack has been missing since pulling a hamstring in the 5-0 victory over Southampton.
The Black Cats five-match unbeaten run came to an end last weekend when Cardiff City upset the odds to leave the Stadium of Light with a 1-0 win. Both players missed the game, despite originally being tipped for a return.
There was a hope that they could recover sufficiently to travel to Hillsborough tomorrow, but Mowbray is insistent that he will not rush them back in order to avoid any potential reoccurence down the line. Speaking to the media ahead of the clash, via Chronicle Live, the 59-year-old said;
“I don’t think either of them are going to make it for tomorrow, though not because they’re miles away.
“It’s just that we’re trying to make sure they’re right so they don’t break down when they come back, that’s with Bradley specifically because we know that hamstring injuries are dangerous ones that can repeat. With Pierre, we just have to accept that he’s had a really bad hematoma and dead leg.
“It was just unfortunate that he took that knock in exactly the same place which has been restrictive to his movement. There’s little chance he’s going to be free flowing by Friday night.”
Continuing, Mowbray addressed their availability for next Wednesday’s fixture against Watford;
“Next Wednesday? I’m not sure at this point, it’s a day by day thing. It’s frustrating because it does have a knock on, we have so many attacking midfielders and I’d like to be able to rotate and at the moment we’re just not quite able to do that.”
Elsewhere, summer signing Nazariy Rusyn could feature after making his debut from the bench last week, and the Ukrainian impressed further during an outing with the under-21 side earlier this week.
Writer’s View
It is a blow for Tony Mowbray that the pair continue to be absent, although he will feel that Sunderland possess enough quality to see off the Championship’s basement club.
Although they lost last weekend, the result wasn’t a fair reflection of the game and Cardiff were arguably lucky to leave the Stadium of Light with three points. The manager has indicated that he would like to rotate his squad, which does hint at changes, and Rusyn will be hoping for his first start.
The form of Abdoullah Ba has also kept Patrick Roberts out of the team in recent weeks but expect the former England under-20 international to regain his spot in the starting XI here.
