Sunderland AFC news: Tony Mowbray provides Pierre Ekwah, Dennis Cikrin and Bardley Dack injury updates

"Dennis obviously is going to be a few weeks, potentially after the next international break but I honestly don't know for sure, we'll wait and see," Mowbray said.

"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.

"So we've made the call to take him out of the situation for two or three weeks and let him fully recovery, do his rehab and he'll be back fine."

"We're surprised it's not through yet, we expected it to be here on Tuesday morning but there was no update when we came back in from training today.

"It's a bit frustrating but it's not that big a deal, he knows he needs some training time really. He hadn't played a game for three or four weeks so he needs to get up to speed. So I don't really see it as a major issue either in his mind or ours.

"I asked him if he wanted to travel with us and see the game and be around it in the hotel etc, but his preference is to get another couple of days training in because he knows that when he can get on the pitch somewhere down the line, he needs to be fit.

"It's not too frustrating because he wouldn't be starting for us, he's only had a few training sessions and at this stage, he doesn't speak any of the language.

"At the moment we can see how fast and sharp he is, but he doesn't have that understanding of the tactics yet. So we're just integrating him in. So the visa isn't a major issue."

Southampton have confirmed the appointment of former Sunderland coach Adam Asghar as The Saints’ new under-21s boss.

Asghar joined Sunderland from Dundee United, where he worked as a first-team coach, in October last year when he was appointed as The Black Cats’ under-18s lead coach.

It was reported last month the 29-year-old would be leaving Wearside to take up a new position at Southampton, with Sunderland now in the process of finding Asghar’s successor.

In a club statement, Southampton announced: “Adam Asghar will be taking the role of under-21s head coach, following the departure of Dave Horseman and Louis Carey in the summer, with the Scotsman arriving after spending the last year as under-18s lead coach at Sunderland.”

During his time at Sunderland Asghar guided the under-18s side to a second-place finish, behind Manchester City, in the Northern section of the 10-team Under-18s Premier League.

Welcome, Sunderland fans!

Black Cats head coach Tony Mowbray is due to face questions at around 1pm following his side's 3-1 win over QPR on Saturday.

Sunderland play Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on Wednesday night with team selection and injuries on the agenda today for Mowbray.

Here, we'll be bringing you live updates from the pre-match presser so Sunderland fans can stay abreast of the latest goings-on!