TONY MOWBRAY does not expect any of Sunderland’s injured players to be available to face either Watford or Sunderland this week – and has revealed that another senior performer has joined the club’s absentee list.

Mowbray’s side return to action when they host Watford at the Stadium of Light tomorrow night, but preparations in the last 24 hours have been affected by the absence of a key name.

The Sunderland boss did not want to provide any specifics when he spoke to the press at the Academy of Light, but conceded he has been forced into a reshuffle he would ideally have wanted to avoid in the wake of last Friday’s impressive showing against Sheffield Wednesday.

“Without telling you everything, we’ve had to do some tactical changes today,” said Mowbray, whose side climbed to fourth position in the table when they won at Hillsborough. “You’ll see the team when it comes out, but there’s a big difference with the injury that’s been picked up.

“That’s meant we’ve had to move the team around to make it work. We’ve had to do that to make sure we have enough people attacking and enough people defending. Otherwise, you have players moving too much in and out of possession and the balance of the team isn’t right. There’s lots of tactical stuff we’ve had to, but this group embrace that. It’s good that they want to learn.

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“The challenges are always there. We have picked up an injury to a pretty key player in the way we play, but let’s just push on and see if we can keep the fluency of the team going.”

Aji Alese, Dennis Cirkin, Pierre Ekwah and Bradley Dack all missed the win at Hillsborough, having also been absent for a number of weeks prior to Friday’s game.

The quartet are approaching the end of their respective rehabilitation programmes, and have been easing their way back into training with the rest of the first-team squad.

However, none are back in full training yet, and while he will continue to discuss the situation with his medical team, Mowbray does not expect them to be involved in either tomorrow’s game with Watford or Saturday’s Wear-Tees derby clash with Middlesbrough.

“We’re not going to have anyone back for these next two games, I don’t think,” said Mowbray. “The international break is coming and for Bradley and Pierre, I think those two extra weeks will be a huge extra benefit for them.

“They’ll be working in the gym and working on their injuries. I'm sure that after the international break we'll be very close to having some real choices to make. It might not be the Stoke game because some of these players will need some Under-21 minutes first, but I think the choices are going to start to get better.

“There isn't going to be much rotation at the moment, the team on my board today picks itself if I’m honest. We've got 20 players available before you go into the younger teams.”