The Lech Poznan and Sunderland team and injury news with three doubts and thirteen ruled out

Sunderland are back in action in the Europa League when they face Lech Poznan in Poland on Thursday night.

Here's the team news from both camps as we have it following the pre-match press conferences and training sessions on Wednesday...

The Sunderland team news

Sunderland will again be without Brian Brobbey for their Europa League clash against Lech Poznan on Thursday night.

However, head coach Régis Le Bris has confirmed that having trained with the group on Wednesday morning he should able to feature against Leeds United in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon. It's expected to be a very similar squad to that which faced SCU Torreense last week, with Omar Alderete available despite missing training on Wednesday.

Wilson Isidor and Thomas Meunier are making progress in their respective injury comebacks but were only able to train individually at the Academy of Light before the team flew out to Poland, and at this stage remain major doubts for any involvement in this particular game. Dan Ballard and Romaine Mundle remain the club's longer-term injury absentees.

A number of senior players will not be involved as UEFA's homegrown registration rules left Sunderland needing to leave some out of their league phase group. Juan Riquelme Angulo was brought in as the club's third striker on deadline day, but has not been registered for the league phase - hence why Timur Tutierov could be set for another big opportunity. Chemsdine Talbi was not registered as at the time he was in talks over a potential move abroad while Jocelin Ta Bi, Alan Browne and Melker Ellborg were also not registered. Kevin Danso is available despite his red card on Sunday, as that does not carry over to the Europa League. He’ll instead serve his one-match suspension against Leeds United this Sunday.

Join the Echo’s WhatsApp SAFC Channel for the latest news, team & injury updates direct to your phone. Simply click this link to join.

Inside the Lech Poznan camp

Lech Poznan, it should be said, are not without injury issues of their own.

Iran international and key forward Allahyar Sayyadmanesh is currently sidelined and though he trained on Wednesday, it was away from the main group and so involvement in this one seems unlikely. Iran team mate Ali Gholizadeh is another longer-term absentee who won't feature here, while there are some key absentees in defence. Swedish defender Alex Douglas is a long-term absentee while Portuguese defender Joao Mountinho is also currently sidelined, albeit having not played much of a part early in the season. More prominent has been the highly rated Polish youth international Wojciech Monka, who has been absent of late and did not train on Wednesday. Right back Robert Gumny did some individual work on Wednesday, but is a major doubt for this one.

It has been a tough start in the league phase for the Railwaymen who lost 4-0 to Crystal Palace and Bayer Leverkusen but head coach Niels Frederiksen does not feel the results were a fair reflection of their performances. "If we take into account the trip to London, we did lose heavily, but I wouldn't rate our performance as reflecting that result," he said.

"The match against Leverkusen was demanding for us, but I think they were the best team we've had the chance to play against so far. I'd like to emphasize that we're not a team that will always focus on defence, but we want to show our style of play and not just stick to defence. We want to attack, create chances, and perform in line with our philosophy. We're disappointed to have lost both matches and conceded eight goals, but we're still in the Europa League. We have the belief and conviction to win."

The Echo’s Europa League coverage is sponsored by Amari Plastics. Covering all of North East England and Cumbria, Amari Plastics launched in 1975 and has built a reputation as the region's leading plastic distributor. During this time, we’ve established strong working relationships with businesses in three main market sectors: sign, display & large format printing, building & construction and industrial & engineering.