Sunderland team news and why Bradley Dack, Nazariy Rusyn and Pierre Ekwah will miss Blackburn match

Sunderland will be without several first-team players due to injury setbacks against Blackburn.

Pierre Ekwah, Bradley Dack and Dennis Cirkin are all absent for the Championship game at Ewood Park, with Black Cats boss Tony Mowbray making one change following Saturday’s 3-1 win over QPR.

Ekwah was forced off with a dead leg during the game at Loftus Road and is also likely to miss Sunday’s game against Cardiff at the Stadium of Light.

Cirkin and Dack missed the match against QPR with hamstring issues, with the former set to be sidelined for the next few weeks.

"Dennis obviously is going to be a few weeks,” said Mowbray in his pre-match press conference. “Potentially after the next international break but I honestly don’t know for sure, we’ll wait and see.

"Pierre has a dead leg and he got a bang in exactly the same place five minutes into the QPR game. It’s quite swollen and these things tend to filter down the leg. He’s got some swelling, so he probably needs ten days to let it all settle down. I don’t think it’s anything we have any major concerns about, other than the frustration for him that he’s going to miss a game or two.

"Bradley Dack has tweaked his hamstring. We need to give him some time to get it right. It’s not a major concern for everybody, but he’s carried it for a week or so and continued to play, but then it gets a little bit worse.”

Alex Pritchard has come into Sunderland’s starting XI in place of Ekwah, after the former came off the bench in the first half against QPR.

New signing Nazariy Rusyn has still not been given clearance to make his Sunderland debut as he awaits visa documentations.

Fellow deadline-day signing Timothee Pembele remains unavailable as he builds his fitness following a long-term injury setback, while Aji Alese (thigh), Eliezer Mayenda (hamstring), Jay Matete (knee) and Corry Evans (ACL) remain out.

Sunderland XI to play Blackburn: Patterson, Hume, Ballard, O’Nien, Huggins, Neil, Bellingham, Ba, Pritchard, Clarke, Burstow

Subs: Bishop, Seelt, Triantis, Rigg, Roberts, Taylor, Watson, Aouchiche, Hemir

Blackburn XI: Pears, Brittain, Pickering, Hyam, Carter, Hedges, A. Wharton, Travis, Szmodics, Moran, Leonard

Subs: Wahlstedt, Hill, Rankin-Costello, S. Wharton, Dolan, Markanday, Garrett, Edmondson, Telalovic