Regis Le Bris provides Sunderland team news for Leeds United trip with six men missing and new fresh doubts
Sunderland take on Leeds United at Elland Road on Tuesday night.
Black Cats boss Regis Le Bris has provided the Sunderland team news for Tuesday night’s Premier League clash against Leeds United at Elland Road for which he has six men out plus new doubts.
Sunderland suffered a quadruple injury blow in the previous weekend’s 3-1 defeat at home to Fulham in which Romaine Mundle, Joceline Ta Bi, Nordi Mukiele and Brian Brobbey all suffered injuries.
Considered as the two more serious blows, Le Bris said last week that Mundle and Ta Bi would need further assessment and added that even Mukiele and Brobbey would likely be facing two to four weeks out depending on how they responded to treatment and rehab.
Le Bris was already without Dennis Cirkin and Reinildo Mandava, Cirkin having picked up a small injury in training prior to the Fulham match and Reinildo still recovering from a knee problem that has kept him out since the 1-0 defeat at home to Liverpool in the middle of last month.
Speaking last week, Le Bris said Reinildo and Cirkin were looking at around another ten days out depending on the last stage of their rehab.
Le Bris held his pre-Leeds press conference on Monday afternoon and confirmed that there had been no changes to the injuries situation and spoke of new slight doubts who would need to be checked.
“The worst experience we had this season so far”
Le Bris said: “Nothing new to report at the minute which is good because against Fulham it was probably the worst experience we had this season so far.
“We still have one or two minor doubts, it’s normal with a quick turnaround between two fixtures. We will probably make decisions late but at the minute they are okay.
“And for the injuries, they have to recover, depending on the injuries. For Romaine, we know it will be long, but it’s important to recover properly. We support him. It will the case for Joceline as well.
“And for the others it’s a question of a week, two weeks, three weeks, depending on their situations.”
In better news for Sunderland, Le Bris was able to welcome back Bertrand Traore from a knee injury for the weekend’s clash at Bournemouth which also saw captain Granit Xhaka bag his first start since also returning from an ankle injury. Xhaka came through 76 minutes of the contest in which Traore was brought on in the 69th minute.
Following a series of injuries, Ahmed Abdullahi, Sunderland’s young Nigerian youth international forward Ahmed Abdullahi made a goalscoring return for the under-21s last week but without yet being considered for first team selection.