Sunderland AFC news: Team news including Nazariy Rusyn, Dan Ballard and Jenson Seelt updates ahead of QPR
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Sunderland are preparing for Saturday's Championship fixture against QPR - and interim head coach Mike Dodds held his pre-match press conference today.
The Black Cats were beaten 4-2 by Southampton on Saturday and have now lost their last six matches. Sunderland will also be without Luke O’Nien, who is suspended, while Jenson Seelt has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, joining the likes of Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts on the club’s injury list. Here's what was said at the Academy of Light as Dodds spoke to the media:
Mike Dodds press conference
Dodds on morale
“One thing with footballers, as long as they have complete clarity and they see progression I think you can keep them going in the right direction.
“What we do whenever we review a game is we always review what was our objective, what went wrong, what do we need to be better with? We review all the physical data. We provide a huge amount of clarity for them of, this is the expectation as an individual and this is the expectation as a group.
“They are not skipping down the corridors. They understand we haven’t won for a period of time but they understand what we are trying to do. We have come up against good opposition and haven’t had our full armoury to go up against them. I would feel a lot more uncomfortable if I had a fully-fit team and results were as they were.”
Dodds on players returning after the international break
“I think we will get two or three bodies back closer to the team. Corry is training with the team, Aji is back training with the team, Bradley Dack is training with the team. There will be three huge positives going into the Easter weekend. Pat and Jack we will see in terms of how their bodies react, it may be a weekend too early for them.”
Dodds on staying positive
“When you try and spin positivity in a negative moment, it’s probably not the best time to spin positivity because people won’t understand the context.
“We’ve played against Leicester side with the second youngest team in EFL history and went toe-to-toe with them. I think fans should be really proud with how young that group is. We went toe-to-toe with a multi-million pound football team.
“Three or four days later we fielded the youngest team in EFL history, where in particular for spells in the second half I felt they gave a really good account of themselves. There are definitely positives. The bit I’m really conscious about spinning too many positives around is we did come sixth last year. At the moment we are sitting in mid-table, we haven’t won in six. The expectation is the expectation and we should try and change that because this club belongs in the Premier League.”
More to come...
That brings us to the end of the broadcast section of the press conference, but Dodds has also spoken to the written press.
You can find more from Sunderland's interim boss and build-up to Saturday's match over on the SAFC section of the Echo website.
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