Sunderland head to South Yorkshire on Friday night to face Sheffield Wednesday. Both go into this one on the back of consecutive defeats.
Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday have lost their last two games in the Championship. The two teams sit in 4th and 13th place of the Championship table respectively and they’ve had some interesting battles over the last year or so.
On the final day of last season, the Owls won 2-0 at the Stadium of Light to secure their Championship safety. Then at the start of this season, Sunderland thumped Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 on Wearside, as Regis Le Bris firmly announced his side’s arrival as title contenders.
But title contenders might be stretch now after defeat against Hull City last time out, which followed Sunderland’s 2-1 defeat at Leeds United in the game before. Then after Leeds beat Sheffield United on Monday, the Black Cats now sit a whole 13 points from the top of the table, and eight behind the 2nd placed Blades.
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Chris Mepham ‘nailed on’ to start for Sunderland vs Sheffield Wednesday
Ahead of the trip to Hillsborough, it’s been revealed that Enzo Le Fee and Dan Ballard are both injured, with both potentially set to spend up to two months on the sidelines with muscle injuries. There’s also a lot of debate about Chris Rigg.
Sunderland fans think Rigg needs to be dropped with the 17-year-old having looked leggy for some time. But Le Bris keeps on starting the teenager whose performance levels aren’t as high as they were earlier in the campaign.
Speaking on Total Sport, BBC pundit Nick Barnes discussed the changes Le Bris might make on Friday night. He said: “He’s [Le Bris] going to have to make changes at Sheffield Wednesday because of the two injuries to Enzo Le Fee and Ballard. So Mepham’s going to come back in, that’s nailed on. Mundle’s going to play.
“Ideally, I think he [Le Bris] would’ve wanted to put Le Fee in the middle as the 10, and that would’ve given him the opportunity to give Rigg a rest. But now you’ve got this question mark hanging over that decision. He could bring Alan Browne in. He’s back in the squad now. He’s not played much.”
Danny Collins thinks another change could be on the cards at Sunderland
The game against Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night could see a very makeshift Sunderland XI, or at least one that we’ve not seen much of. Like Barnes says, Mepham and Mundle surely come into the XI for Ballard and Le Fee, but there’s other changes to consider.
Not just Rigg, but Anthony Patterson too. The Sunderland goalkeeper scored an own goal against Hull City and pundit Danny Collins has backed Le Bris to drop Patterson for the game against Sheffield Wednesday.
Collins said: “Simon Moore come in earlier when Patto had an injury, and he actually did quite well. He had three or four clean sheets on the bounce I think, remembering it now. He’s a sort of experienced goalkeeper, he [Le Bris] may well think, ‘I’ll just take him out the firing line’.
“Patto’s still a young goalkeeper at the end of the day. He [Le Bris] might feel, ‘I’ll just give him a little break and bring him [Moore] in’.”
Injuries to Le Fee and Ballard though could mean that the likes of Rigg and Patterson keep their spots. Le Bris likely knows the pair need a break but injuries will enforce two changes already – Le Bris wont want to make too many changes and take the momentum out of the group.
Kick off is at 8pm on Friday night.