Tony Mowbray gives a concerning Sunderland injury update as club suffer fresh setbacks

Tony Mowbray is facing a number of major selection headaches ahead of this weekend's trip to Norwich City, with his defensive options hit by a season-ending injury to Aji Alese.
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Alese came off at half-time last week after suffering a thigh problem, and tests have confirmed the worst this week.

Mowbray now has a big dilemma at left back as Dennis Cirkin is still out as he recovers from concussion. The full back is doing some training on his own but continues to suffer some symptoms, and so cannot rejoin full training and be considered for selection.

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The Sunderland head coach says he is remaining positive and will go into a challenging run of games looking for points, but admits that his group have been stretched.

Sunderland defender Lynden GoochSunderland defender Lynden Gooch
Sunderland defender Lynden Gooch

To compound his problems, Mowbray watched an 'important player' in his group suffer a suspected muscle injury in training on Friday - making him an obvious doubt for Sunday's game.

"It's disappointing for Aji - Dennis is still not ready," Mowbray said.

"We've had an incident in training today where a pretty important player for us has had to come off. I haven't spoken to the physio department in depth yet but it looks like a muscle injury - but it's never good when someone comes off mid-training.

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"Like any football club, injuries are part and parcel of the game and you've got to get on with it, though it does feel like we've been hit pretty hard. It felt like, when we were on the cusp of Ross getting back fit, we felt we could have a really good second half of the season and that we were only going to get stronger, so there is a frustration to it and we've had to go to the well with the same group of players by and large.

"Huge credit to the players, we're going through a sticky spell but we'll look forward to these games against teams at the top. We're a long way from having our strongest group but we'll attack the games and be positive."

Mowbray confirmed that Lynden Gooch should be able to return to the group after a recent injury to give him one welcome boost, but the head coach says he is taking a cautious approach with Niall Huggins as he recovers from his long-term injury issues.

The head coach has long said that the full back needs a full pre-season to compete week in, week out for a place in the side.

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"Lynden we think will be able to travel with the group," Mowbray said.

"With Niall, we think he probably needs to play in the U21s to get that confidence that he can cope with it again, rather than chuck him into the first-team scenario. We've done that in the past but he seems to have broken down on the back of it.

"We need him to get the confidence that when he comes into the first-team, he knows he won't break down. We need to get Niall into a mental position where he feels robust and strong and become that regular competitor in the team."