Sunderland boss admits major selection issue in mixed injury update ahead of Stoke City

Tony Mowbray admits he is not yet sure who will be fit to face Stoke City on Saturday afternoon despite hopes that his senior squad would be stronger for the return of Championship football.

Dan Neil will serve his one-match suspension for the game, while Dan Ballard is a doubt after picking up a minor muscle injury on international duty with Northern Ireland.

Pierre Ekwah, Alex Pritchard and Bradley Dack have all returned to training in some capacity over the international break, but as of yet Mowbray is not sure whether they will be ready to make their return at Stoke.

Adding an additional complication to the selection process is the fact that some of Sunderland's players currently on international duty will not return to Wearside until Friday, raising significant doubt over whether they will be able to feature.

"Training today and tomorrow will be key, if they aren't fully training by tomorrow they won't be playing and they understand that," Mowbray said.

"There's training with the physios and there's training fully with the team. Those players you mention [Ekwah, Dack, Pritchard] have been doing a little bit of both. So we'll see on Friday, we won't put pressure on players.

"We have to prepare the team. The sad thing for me is that we haven't even had some of the players back yet from international duty, they won't be back until tomorrow and in my mind, they won't be able to start. How can you prepare your team when you can't train with them?

"So the team is still a little undecided, some players have played three games over the last week and they are fatigued, so we didn't put them into training today. It's not ideal, and it's not a moan because every manager with international footballers has that.

"We'll get on with it, and whoever is out there training tomorrow - we'll put the team together from there."

One boost for Mowbray and Sunderland is that Niall Huggins, who came off during the first half of the Middlesbrough defeat with an injury, could yet be fit to face Stoke and has certainly not suffered any significant setback.

"Niall is OK," Mowbray said.

"We would be hopeful he's got a chance, he had a scan and there was an injury but he's been easing himself back into training. if he trains fully on Friday, he's got a chance.