Sunderland’s injury troubles have continued ahead of Saturday’s trip to Stoke City.
The Black Cats could be without up to nine first-team players for the Premier League clash at the Bet365 Stadium, with Lamine Kone and Jason Denayer listed as doubts by manager David Moyes.
Already without Vito Mannone, Seb Larsson, Jan Kirchhoff, Adnan Januzaj and Fabio Borini, the Sunderland boss also confirmed that Lee Cattermole and Steven Pienaar are also unavailable.
“We have one or two doubts coming back from international duty – there is a doubt about Jason Denayer and there is certainly one over Lamine Kone as well.
“Those two are the biggest concerns but we’ve also had one or two people out for a while now, so we have a lengthy list at the moment.”
He continued: “It’s part of football and every football club has injuries so you’re always looking to see why you have them, but ours have all been in games whereas if it happened in training you can look at what you’re doing and the amount.
“That’s the one good thing about it – it is nothing we’re doing at the training ground – but it’s a problem that we’re getting injuries because we don’t have a strong enough squad to cope with our better players being out of the team.
“Kone finished the game so we’re hoping he may be okay, but it’s a twinge in his hamstring that he felt so we need to see how he is today.
“Lee Cattermole has had a couple of injections and he’s not ready to play at the moment; him and Seb Larsson had ongoing problems – Seb had surgery – and Lee has never really been comfortable.
“We’re working to try and get to the crux of what the problem is.”