Régis Le Bris confirms Sunderland duo could leave after being left out of brilliant win

Régis Le Bris has left the door open to Adil Aouchiche and Abdoullah Ba potentially leaving the club this week after they weren't named in the squad for the win over Burnley.

Ian Poveda came into the squad for the first time since joining as a free agent in the summer, but young winger Tommy Watson was also brought into the group. Le Bris confirmed afterwards that neither were injured and while he said both had every chance of playing their way back into his plans, he couldn't rule out the prospect of a late departure.

"This is the question of the whole competition in the squad," Le Bris said.

"They were not selected for that game but if they work well, they will be involved for the next one. It is like that. The season is very long, so the players didn't play today or were not in the squad, they will have an opportunity to play if they work very hard."

Asked if either could leave, Le Bris replied: "It's a possibility. The transfer window is still open and it is very unpredictable so we will see."

A number of other players are likely to leave on loan this week, including Jewison Bennette, Luis Hemir, Joe Anderson and Zak Johnson.

Sunderland went top of the table after their most impressive win of the campaign to date, Romaine Mundle's first-goal proving the difference between the teams. The Black Cats dominated the early exchanges and Le Bris' only frustration was that they did not extend their lead further.

Dan Neil was sent off with five minutes to play after being shown a second yellow card for Sunderland defended their lead well, Anthony Patterson barely having a save to make. Le Bris said he was particularly pleased with the application of his side as they kept their third clean sheet in as many games.

"I think the first 25 minutes were very good, the game we wanted to play," Le Bris said.

"We only scored one goal and this is my only regret, because when we have this kind of momentum we have to score a second because it makes the game different. So this part of the game was very interesting, we create many chances and recover the ball high. We didn't concede anything. After that, they changed the way they build so it was more difficult to recover the ball, we kept the shape and just conceded one chance at the end of the half. We then changed some little details and I think it was better. The game was different because they wanted to score, we had the opportunity to score a second goal but didn't. We concede the red card but I like the way we defended, I liked the spirit - you could see that we wanted to protect our goal."

Neil's red card was the only downside to the win, with the team captain now ruled out of the trip to Portsmouth due to suspension. Le Bris said he was confident he could find a solution, with Alan Browne likely to come back into the side and play in a slightly deeper role.