Sunderland are set to undertake their hardest test of the campaign so far as they travel to Leicester City tonight.
The challenge has already been made significantly harder by Tony Mowbray’s claim that ‘four or five’ players face missing the trip due to injury.
After a long previous season full of injuries, the Black Cats’ luck hasn’t got much better this time round.
Corry Evans, Timothee Pembele, Alex Pritchard, Jay Matete, Pierre Ekwah, Aji Alese, Bradley Dack, Dan Ballard, Dennis Cirkin and Eliezer Mayenda have all been sidelined at some point in recent months, with the latter two potentially returning to action at the King Power Stadium.
Mowbray has admitted Cirkin and Mayenda could make the bench against Leicester, with the Spanish forward yet to make his debut for Sunderland since joining in July.
However, the Championship club face more bad news, with Mowbray confirming that Ballard hasn’t trained since the defeat to Stoke City.
The defender was also touch-and-go for the weekend’s loss, though he ended up being named in the starting line-up.
However, despite playing the full 90 minutes at the bet365 stadium, Mowbray has now questioned his fitness.
Speaking ahead of the Leicester clash (as per Chronicle Live), the Black Cats boss said: “Is everyone fit and well? No. Is anyone back from injury? No.
“It’s a quick turnaround and there are four or five not training today that we hope are going to play tomorrow, but there are lots of knocks and lots of niggles – tight calves, sore hamstrings, dead legs. There will be a few fitness tests tomorrow and we’ll have to wait and see.
“We can only pick fit players and we’ll see who is fit tomorrow. Dan [Ballard] is one of the players who hasn’t trained since he came off the pitch, so we’ll have to wait and see if he passes a fitness test tomorrow.”
Can we cope without Dan Ballard?
While Dan Ballard hasn’t hit the headlines in the way that Jack Clarke has, the Northern Ireland international has easily been one of, if not the best, of Sunderland’s squad this season.
The centre-back has been excellent in defence and has prevented a number of goals with his blocks and interceptions. While we lost against Stoke and Middlesbrough, the scorelines could have been a lot worse if we didn’t have Ballard at the back.
To play against a team like Leicester – with Kelechi Iheanacho, Stephy Mavididi and more – without our best defender would be an absolute disaster.
Can we trust the inexperienced Jenson Seelt or Nectarios Triantis to come in and fill his void against a team that have won eleven of their opening twelve matches? I don’t know…
