Régis Le Bris makes three Sunderland changes for Bristol City with Enzo Le Fée decision confirmed
Sunderland face Bristol City on Friday afternoon
Enzo Le Fée makes his first start since suffering a hamstring injury at Bristol City this afternoon.
The AS Roma loanee is highly unlikely to play 90 minutes but the move marks a significant step forward in his comeback.
Régis Le Bris has made three changes to his starting XI, with Leo Hjelde returning to the team at left back. Alan Browne drops to the bench alongside Harrison Jones, who made his first league start in the 1-0 defeat to Swansea City. Wilson Isidor is also on the bench as Le Bris rotates his players ahead of next month’s play-off campaign, with Eliezer Mayenda up front.
Bristol City have been handed a major injury boost after first-choice goalkeeper Max O’Leary was passed fit to play despite missing most of training this week with an ankle knock.
Sunderland AFC XI: Patterson; Hume, Mepham, O’Nien, Hjelde; Neil, Le Fee, Rigg; Roberts, Watson, Mayenda
Subs: Moore, Aleksic, Isidor, Browne, Samed, Jones, Middlemas, Anderson, Jobe
Sunderland injury update
While not yet ready to return to the squad, Le Bris confirmed in midweek that Dennis Cirkin and Dan Ballard are making good progress in their respective returns from hamstring injury.
Cirkin could even return to the squad on Monday: “Dennis will hopefully be back on Monday [for Blackburn Rovers], I don’t think he will be a starter but we will see if we can give him a short period of time off the bench. We will see on that one. Leo is [fully] available again. Salis is back. A little bit later we will have Dan Ballard back in training.”
Aji Alese could yet return in time to feature in the play-offs next month.