Tony Mowbray has revealed that a key senior player will be unavailable for Sunderland’s meeting with Watford this week.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, the Black Cats boss suggested that the team-sheet could look very different due to the injury.
Sunderland were already expected to be without Timothee Pembele, Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese, Corry Evans, Pierre Ekwah and Bradley Dack for Wednesday’s fixture, however it appears their injury list has now become even longer.
Mowbray refused to reveal who it was that had picked up an injury since the win over Sheffield Wednesday, however he made it very clear that it would be a huge loss going into the match against the Hornets.
“Without telling you everything, we’ve had to do some tactical changes today,” Mowbray told the media.
“You’ll see the team when it comes out, but there’s a big difference with the injury that’s been picked up.
“That’s meant we’ve had to move the team around to make it work. We’ve had to do that to make sure we have enough people attacking and enough people defending. Otherwise, you have players moving too much in and out of possession and the balance of the team isn’t right. There’s lots of tactical stuff we’ve had to, but this group embrace that. It’s good that they want to learn.”
Who could be out vs Watford?
It’s hard to work out who it could be that has found themselves in the treatment room this week, though it is a huge concern in any area of the pitch.
A player like Luke O’Nien or Dan Ballard out would mean Sunderland would have to consider bringing in one of the new lads who have barely played this season, while an injury to Mason Burstow could mean Mowbray returns to a team with no striker.
While he has Luis Hemir Semedo as an option, he seems to have avoided playing the forward as much as possible since his disappointing debut on the opening day.
A midfield injury would be another significant worry considering our lack of options there already. The absence of someone like Dan Neil would be very bad, with the Black Cats really lacking anyone to fill that void that was already left by Pierre Ekwah.
Could he bring Luke O’Nien back into midfield? Could Chris Rigg be handed a chance? We will have to wait and see.