Tony Mowbray reveals Sunderland dressing room message pre-Burnley

A potentially daunting fixture for Mowbray's side has been made even greater as injuries continue to strike, with Dan Ballard and Jewison Bennette the latest pair to be ruled out for the coming weeks.

Mowbray says his team can take heart from having competed with Norwich City, Sheffield and Luton Town in the week before the international break and has pledged that they will look to produce an attacking performance for the supporters making the trip.

"The term free-hit is probably the wrong one, but it's not a game where we're going to sit in a 5-4-1 and be really negative - putting everyone behind the ball," Mowbray said.

"We're going to go and play the way we want to play, and hopefully it gives Burnley a really good game of football.

"Hopefully our supporters will see a team that is trying to attack, get forward and score goals.

“Like we have done in all of the games, we will be aggressive and attack the game. Sometimes the opposition's team quality can push you back but we won’t go with the mindset of being defensive. We will go and take the game to them."

Mowbray says he will make a late call on some of his internationals, who arrived back on Wearside the day before the fixture and having had a heavy workload over the break.

"Amad probably won't have trained, he'll probably have come back and then got on the bus to travel with us.

"Edouard and Abdoullah will be back but they played on Tuesday afternoon... that's the international week for you and of course the game got brought forward to the Friday so you lose a training day there.

"Amad has been half way round the world and the other two lads have started two of the three games and come on in the other one.

"They'll be on the bus and we'll see where they are and make those decisions."