SUNDERLAND will be without Amad Diallo for the visit of Sheffield United, but Tony Mowbray hopes to welcome Alex Pritchard back into his squad.

The pair missed the weekend win over Norwich City and although Manchester United loanee Amad has resumed light training, Mowbray doesn't want to risk aggravating his hamstring problem. He hopes to have the forward available again for Saturday's game against Luton Town.

Mowbray said: "I haven’t seen Amad today [Tuesday], he’s been with the medical department. He was on the grass doing a little bit of training with them yesterday and still can feel it, so I’ve just told him that we’ll forget about tomorrow.

"Pritchard was out with him and the medical department yesterday and he’s been able to train with us today, so he will probably have some involvement. We’ll have to wait and see whether he has any reaction today so I won’t know until tomorrow, but if he’s named on the bench tomorrow then he’s come through OK. Amad will hopefully be OK for Saturday."

Mowbray said at the weekend that he felt the amount of football Amad has played this season has just caught up with the young forward, with the head coach closely monitoring training loads of his all of his players.

He said: "Today, we won't have done 2,000 metres. We basically walked through our game prep having played on Sunday. Then trained yesterday and today, basically walking two days.

"You just try to manage their load so you know Wednesday is a huge spike in their work ethic. There are certain numbers that you get to over the week, so in two game weeks you'll have two spikes where they cover 10, 11, 12,000 metres. Doing that twice there's 24, 25,000 and the whole week's training should be around 25,000-30,000, so the days in between games become really minimal.

"That's why it's so difficult when you play every three days, you're spiking your physical output so high to try and prepare for a different type of team. It's really difficult to do proper preparation to get that game right, because if you push them too hard you spike the data again and then you pick up the injuries."

Lynden Gooch came through his return to action unscathed against Norwich and will again be in the squad for the game against the promotion chasing Blades.