Tony Mowbray outlines and explains Sunderland's Bradley Dack plan amid minor injury issue

Tony Mowbray says that Sunderland will ensure that there is no risk of Bradley Dack worsening his minor hamstring option before he is cleared to return to the first team.

Dack has missed Sunderland's last three fixtures, with Mowbray saying ahead of the Cardiff City defeat that the attacking midfielder could probably have played if he had felt it absolutely necessary. That means the 29-year-old could possibly return when Sunderland travel to Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night but speaking last week, Mowbray outlined why he was determined to take a cautious approach.

"What we were bit afraid about is that if he continued playing, he'd have made it worse," Mowbray said.

"So we made the call to take him out of the situation for a couple of weeks, let him fully recover and do his strengthening so it is fine when he comes back.

"When we brought Bradley Dack in off the back of two cruciate injuries, it was never to play 46 games. If we can get 25 games out of Bradley this year then we'd be happy [with that], so there's no problem. he played three consecutive games for us so it;'s no problem for him to miss a couple then bring him back.

"It's fine, and Bradley is OK with that at the moment. He is a miss, because he's a midfielder who scores goals but we'll just push on and keep going.

"Bradley is here to help us win matches and bring his quality but also to help some of the younger players understand the game better and to help the dressing room, that's the bigger picture for us.

"He's a good human being and very talented. He's an experienced pro and one of the reasons we signed him was to be a role model. If he helps the young strikers and the young midfielders get better, then everyone benefits. Bradley just wants to play football and there's going to be a lot of opportunities for him to make an impact on the pitch through the rest of the season."

Sunderland are waiting to see if Pierre Ekwah will fit to return at Hillsborough, with Dennis Cirkin still sidelined.