TONY MOWBRAY will have to field a makeshift central defence at the weekend after Dan Ballard and Luke O’Nien both picked up bookings that will rule them out of their side’s home game with Birmingham City.

Sunderland’s first-choice centre-halves headed into Saturday’s game at Swansea on four bookings each for the season, and while Mowbray accepted they would almost certainly pick up a fifth yellow card at some stage, he was desperate to avoid the ‘nightmare scenario’ of them being suspended for the same game.

However, after Ballard was shown a yellow card in the early stages of the second half against the Swans, O’Nien followed him into the referee’s notebook for a foul in the third minute of stoppage time.

As a result, they will both now be sidelined when Birmingham visit the Stadium of Light for Sunderland’s final game before the international break.

“My frustration was not with them, really, it was managing the game at the top end of the pitch,” said Mowbray. “At the back, there wasn’t really a threat, so why were we making last-ditch tackles to get ourselves booked? Just manage the game better.

“It was frustrating that both of them got themselves into situations where they made bookable tackles, and now we’ll have to face Birmingham without both of our central defenders. It will be an opportunity for somebody else to come in and see if they can do the job.”

Jenson Seelt and Nectarios Triantis could play alongside each other against Birmingham, although neither has had much game time since joining Sunderland in the summer.

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Dutchman Seelt has made two substitute appearances in the Championship since moving to Wearside, while Triantis has yet to play a single minute of league football since leaving Australia.

An alternative would be to play either Niall Huggins or Trai Hume at centre-half, with Dennis Cirkin available to slot in at left-back.

Cirkin was a second-half substitute against Swansea, and there was a surprise on the bench at the weekend in the shape of 16-year-old goalkeeper Matty Young, who was named as the deputy for Anthony Patterson.

Nathan Bishop has generally been Sunderland’s second-choice goalkeeper this season, but Mowbray revealed the summer signing from Manchester United was missing because of a personal issue.

“There was no injury (to Bishop),” he said. “He has a family issue at home, and he needed to stay there so he didn’t travel.”