Mike Dodds issues Sunderland team news update and makes honest admission on replacing Jack Clarke

Mike Dodds admits he can't directly replace Jack Clarke and will tweak Sunderland's approach in the six weeks the winger is absent.

Dodds had initially been hopeful that the winger would not be sidelined for too long a period after suffering an ankle injury against Birmingham City, but a specialist assessment this week confirmed there is ligament damage. While Dodds is upbeat that the squad can thrive in his absence, he said there was no disguising that it was a big loss.

"He played 90 minutes at Birmingham and rolled his ankle in the game," Dodds said.

"When I spoke to him the plan was to train later on in the week, but the swelling just didn’t come down. Jack was upbeat and the feedback was a semi-positive one but it came to early in the week and the rate of progress wasn’t what we expected or hoped so we made a decision for him to go and see a specialist Wednesday morning to find out what was going on and the feedback is the feedback which is a crushing blow.

"But at the same time, I’ve got to control the controllables and it’s something now for the next six weeks that won’t be in my head or in my thoughts. Like I’ve said a thousand times, it’s not just a blow for us, Jack Clarke would be a massive blow for any team in this league. For someone who is a week into the role, it’s not the news you want. But at the same time I’ve processed it and from yesterday afternoon onwards it was full focus on ‘right, we haven’t got him now.’ I’ve got to control what I can control and let’s prepare the team to go to Norwich and come back with three points.

"Some weeks we might play with wingers, some weeks we might not. In terms of a direct replacement then no, let's not beat around the bush, there isn't one either in this football club or probably in the whole league. He's one of the best one or two wingers in the league and if you were talking about the best player full stop, you could argue he's in that conversation. In terms of replacing Jack Clarke with another Jack Clarke, that isn't going to happen. So we have to come up with a slightly different way of playing, some other ideas to get the most out of the other players we have who can play in that area of the pitch."

Dodds said there was promising news elsewhere, with a number of senior players edging closer to a return.

"Corry [Evans] is back in full training but we need to treat that with a level of caution because he has been out for over a year, but he has been back in training and it's great to have him out there in terms of his experience and his know how," Dodds said.

"Aji and Dacky are not far away, they're not joining in fully yet but they are taking part in some of the training. So there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel with some of them, but in terms of this weekend it's going to be a similar type of squad."