DENNIS CIRKIN will once again be absent when Sunderland travel to Bramall Lane to take on promotion rivals Sheffield United tomorrow night.

Cirkin has missed the Black Cats’ last two games following surgery on a broken wrist sustained in the goalless draw with QPR.

The full-back has been passed fit to resume training at the Academy of Light, but Regis Le Bris is determined not to take any unnecessary risks with Cirkin initially having been instructed to have a two-week recovery period.

With an eight-day gap between the Sheffield United game and Sunderland’s next fixture against Stoke City, Le Bris will err on the side of caution by leaving Cirkin out of the squad for the trip to South Yorkshire.

“He’s (Cirkin) okay now and ready to train, but he needs two weeks (total recovery time) and we have other solutions in the squad right now,” said the Sunderland boss, whose side are unbeaten in ten games but who have not won in five.

“We don’t have to rush the process. I trust Dennis and he is very important for us, but at the minute, it would be too risky to use him tomorrow.”

Instead, Le Bris will have to decide whether to stick with the defensive formation that secured a clean sheet against West Brom on Tuesday night, with Luke O’Nien stationed at right-back and Trai Hume playing on the left, or recall Aji Alese to deputise for Cirkin.

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While Hume is more normally a right-back, the Northern Ireland international has experience of playing on the left of the back four and Le Bris has revealed he was guided by his coaches, Mike Dodds and Michael Proctor, as he pondered his defensive line-up in midweek.

“It was a new experience for me,” he said. “Although not for them because they are used to playing like that before. I spoke with the staff, they said it was a good option, and I trust them. I think they played well, even if we didn’t score or win the game.”

O’Nien has spent most of the season playing at centre-half, but like Hume, the switch to a different position hardly thrust him into the unknown.

The bigger challenge for O’Nien might be reclaiming his previous position at centre-half, with Dan Ballard and Chris Mepham having combined extremely effectively in Tuesday night’s draw.

Ballard has long been one of Sunderland’s key defenders, but given the quality of Mepham’s performances in the last couple of months, it could now be argued that the Bournemouth loanee is the Black Cats’ most in-form centre-half. What that means for O’Nien’s long-term prospects remains to be seen.

“Luke is very important for the team,” said Le Bris. “He is doing very well, and at the minute, the defence is a good problem for me. If we have more depth in the squad, we can manage and find different solutions.”