SUNDERLAND have been dealt a double injury blow ahead of Wednesday night's trip to Blackburn, with Pierre Ekwah and Bradley Dack both ruled out - while the Black Cats are still awaiting Nazariy Rusyn's visa.

Sunderland thought the Ukrainian striker would have had the green light to play by this stage, but Mowbray isn't concerned by the delay and says Rusyn will benefit from the time on the training pitch.

Neither Ekwah or Dack are facing lengthy spell on the sidelines but both need time to recover, with Ekwah suffering from the after-effects of a dead leg and Dack having tweaked his hamstring.

Jobe Bellingham looks set to drop back into the deeper midfield role at Ewood Park, with Patrick Roberts pushing for a start after his cameo from the bench in the win at QPR on Saturday.

Mowbray said: "Pierre has a dead leg and he got a bang in exactly the same place five minutes into the QPR game. It's quite swollen and these things tend to filter down the leg. He's got some swelling, so he probably needs ten days to let it all settle down. I don't think it's anything we have any major concerns about, other than the frustration for him that he's going to miss a game or two.

"Dack has tweaked his hamstring. We need to give him some time to get it right. It's not a major concern for everybody, but he's carried it for a week or so and continued to play, but then it gets a little bit worse. So we've made the call to take him out of the situation for two or three weeks and let him fully recovery, do his rehab and he'll be back fine."

Mowbray has also revealed that Dennis Cirkin is a "few weeks" away from being ready to return, with the defender battling a hamstring problem.

"It will potentially be after the next international break but I honestly don't know for sure, we'll wait and see," said Mowbray.

Rusyn received a visa enabling him to enter the United Kingdom after completing his move to Sunderland on deadline day but is still awaiting the relevant documents that will allow him to play.

Mowbray is calm about the matter, though, and says the opportunity for a prolonged spell on the training pitch will benefit the forward in the long run.

He said: "We're surprised it's not through yet, we expected it to be here on Tuesday morning but there was no update when we came back in from training.

"It's a bit frustrating but it's not that big a deal, he knows he needs some training time really. He hadn't played a game for three or four weeks so he needs to get up to speed. So I don't really see it as a major issue either in his mind or ours.

"I asked him if he wanted to travel with us and see the game and be around it in the hotel etc, but his preference is to get another couple of days training in because he knows that when he can get on the pitch somewhere down the line, he needs to be fit.

"It's not too frustrating because he wouldn't be starting for us, he's only had a few training sessions and at this stage, he doesn't speak any of the language.

"At the moment we can see how fast and sharp he is, but he doesn't have that understanding of the tactics yet. So we're just integrating him in. So the visa isn't a major issue."