DENNIS CIRKIN has come through this week’s two outings unscathed, but Tony Mowbray is reluctant to throw the Sunderland defender straight back into the starting line-up when Norwich City visit the Stadium of Light at the weekend.

Cirkin, who has been sidelined with a hamstring injury sustained in early September, played the opening 45 minutes of a behind-closed-doors Under-21s’ friendly with Hibernian on Monday afternoon.

He then came off the bench for the final half-hour of Sunderland’s Championship defeat to Leicester City at the King Power on Tuesday night.

He has shown no ill effects from his double-header, but with Niall Huggins having slotted in effectively at left-back in his absence, Mowbray will not be rushing to restore the 21-year-old to the starting side.

“Dennis played 45 minutes in the Under-21s on Monday and then 30 minutes on Tuesday night,” said the Black Cats boss. “There’s a few players in that boat who played in the Under-21s on Monday and then came with us and got some game time the very next day.

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“It’s a balancing act with these players in terms of getting them up to speed where they can play in the Championship. It’s not as easy as putting players straight back in for 90 minutes, you’re putting them in jeopardy if you do that because it's a different tempo in the Championship.

“Generally, I’m not moaning about injuries. We’ve got some pretty good players on their way back who will help us, as you saw with Dennis - giving us that balance with his natural left foot on that side.”

Bradley Dack and Adil Aouchiche were not part of the squad at the King Power, and the pair will not be involved when Norwich visit the Stadium of Light on Saturday afternoon.

However, their respective injury issues are not serious, with Dack already having been able to step up his training programme at the Academy of Light.

“They’re not bad injuries at all,” said Mowbray. “Bradley is fine, it’s just that he’s needed to get up to speed having missed six weeks or however long it was with a hamstring injury.

“He trained fully with us (yesterday), we just need him to train for a week, work hard and get right up to speed so he’s ready to play.

“Adil, the medical report tells me it’s one to two weeks so that’s not going to be a long problem. But I think we’ll have the same group to select from on Saturday.”

Tuesday’s defeat was Sunderland’s third in succession, following on from previous reverses against Middlesbrough and Stoke City.

It is the first time the Black Cats have suffered three league losses in a row under Mowbray, but the experienced campaigner is not unduly worried by his side’s form.

“Generally, I think the overall identity of the team is still strong and we believe that over the longer piece, if we play as well as we know we can, we will win plenty of games," Mowbray said.

I'm sure we are more than capable of winning three or four on the bounce as we go forward and it will all balance out. The good teams, the better teams, finish at the top end and the less-structured teams finish at the other end.

"I'm pretty sure we will finish at the top end, but there are a lot of good teams in this league who are going to be very competitive.

"The data is there, we have lost three on the bounce and we just have to accept it, and yet it is tough to take given the way those games have panned out.It'll turn for us, of that I'm sure.