DANNY Batth is a step closer to a Sunderland return after resuming training, while Niall Huggins is also on the road to recovery.

But Alex Pritchard, Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese are all still sidelined and are not yet in training.

Tony Mowbray provided an injury update ahead of the visit of Swansea City this weekend.

He said: "Danny Batth trained today which was good. Niall Huggins had his first day back which was good.

"There's no Aji, no Cirkin, no Embleton, no Pritchard, everybody else is back in contention.

"It was Niall's first day back so he won't be back in contention but it's good to have him back on the grass and on the road back to competing for a place in the team."

Full-back Huggins had more than a year out of action with an ankle injury before making his return at Birmingham in November, but he hasn't featured since.

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Swansea have no fresh injury concerns ahead of their trip to the Stadium of Light, but Morgan Whittaker will be missing after the forward was the subject of a transfer bid from an unnamed club this week.

Swansea boss Russell Martin said: “We’ve had bids for two of our players – one of those is Morgan.

“With that in mind, Morgan won't be involved at the weekend with that hanging over his head. I’ve been really pleased with him since he’s come back, but the reality is that if he plays one minute for us, he can’t go to that club.

“Hopefully that situation will be resolved really quickly both for him and for us and we can move on with some certainty."