Sunderland AFC news: Team news including Nazariy Rusyn, Dan Ballard and Jenson Seelt updates ahead of QPR

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Mike Dodds' pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday's Championship match against QPR.

The Black Cats boss is set to speak to the media at 12:30pm, and we'll have live updates from the Academy of Light.

Stick around and refresh the page for live updates.

We'll start with the Sunderland team news.

Dan Ballard was forced off with a hamstring injury against Southampton last weekend, but has been included in Northern Ireland's squad for their upcoming friendly matches this month. Dodds wasn't sure about the severity of the defender's injury after the match at St Mary's and will be asked about the situation later today.

It has been confirmed that Jenson Seelt will miss the rest of this season with a knee injury, while Jack Clarke, Patrick Roberts, Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese, Corry Evans, Bradley Dack, Niall Huggins and Elliot Embleton remain unavailable. Luke O'Nien will also miss tomorrow's fixture as he serves the second match of his two-game suspension for picking up 10 yellow cards this season.

We'll get a further update from Dodds this afternoon.

Here's what Dodds said about Ballard immediately after Saturday's match at Southampton:

"Dan tried to play on, I don't want to add any fuel to the fire because at this point I don't actually know," "He's come off with a hamstring injury, which isn't great. I don't want to comment at the moment whether it is minor or major because he'll come in and be assessed on Monday. He's strapped at the moment and he's OK within himself at the moment, he's not overly panicked but we'll have to see. We'll just have to wait and see."

“Dan, it’s not as bad as first feared. It’s a real difficult one. I think what we are going to do with Dan is leave it until the very last minute. There’s a few kind of moving parts to that one.”

“Jenson was absolutely fine, woke up the next morning and his knee had completely swollen up. The physios rang me Sunday and said ‘you won’t believe it this is what has happened.’

“They are still not sure on the timeframe but his season is finished. It just seems to be one thing after another at the moment.”

"We have one more, Naz. Naz picked up a knock during the game. He won’t be available for tomorrow. We are waiting for people who are a lot more qualified in terms than I am for a timeframe on that. He could be back next week or it could be longer.”

“I don’t think I can hide the back four unless I’m going to do something ridiculous. I think since I’ve taken the team, I can see the woods through the trees a little bit with the cards I’ve got.

“I’ve got to keep going with it, make sure the players are clear with the game plan and we have to come through this period and will be stronger for it.”

“I will always back young players but I think to have young players across the board is not ideal. I think we have some incredibly good footballers at this football club. I think we’ve got some huge assets at the football club.

“The only way to come through this spell is to stick together. I’m quietly confident that when players start to trickle back into the group things will start to turn.”

“The new coach has come in and made them really hard to play against. They went away to Leicester and won 2-1.

“Having watched their games they are a different QPR to what we played earlier in the season. Like I always say, there aren't any easy games in this league and we are going to have to be really good to get a result.

“You know they are going to come and give absolutely everything.”