STEVE Bruce will select Ahmed Elmohamady as an emergency centre-forward when Sunderland travel to Bolton Wanderers this afternoon.

For the second game in succession, the Black Cats will kick off at the Reebok Stadium without a single fit centre-forward in their squad.

Asamoah Gyan and Danny Welbeck are both nursing hamstring injuries that will rule them out of the remainder of the season, while Fraizer Campbell is beginning a lengthy rehabilitation following knee surgery that will sideline him for most of next term.

Reserve-team duo Ryan Noble and Craig Lynch were both part of the squad that travelled to Lancashire yesterday, but Bruce is reluctant to promote either to the starting line-up this afternoon as he feels the pressure of a high-profile Premier League game could do more harm than good at such an early stage of the duo's development.

Last weekend, Nedum Onuoha played up front for the final 25 minutes of Sunderland's 3-0 defeat against Fulham.

However, with the defender having failed to make much of an impression against Philippe Senderos and Aaron Hughes, Bruce will not be repeating the experiment against a Bolton side likely to feature Zat Knight and Gary Cahill at centre-half.

Instead, the Sunderland boss is ready to field Elmohamady alongside Stephane Sessegnon in an attacking line-up no one would have predicted as recently as a fortnight ago.

Having spent most of the season playing as a right midfielder, Elmohamady has started the last four games at right-back.

He has never played in a striking role for Sunderland, and today's selection merely underlines the lack of viable alternatives available to Bruce.

"When I look at the start of the season, we were in a position where we had a forward line that was as good as anything Sunderland have ever had," said the Black Cats boss. "They were young, fit and able to score goals, but within six months, none of them are available.

"It's hugely frustrating and it's impossible not to think about what might have been. I've never known anything like the situation we find ourselves in."

Elmohamady's positional switch creates a hole at right-back, which is likely to filled by a fit-again Anton Ferdinand, with Onuoha remaining at centre-half alongside John Mensah.

Another right-back, Marcos Angeleri, will not be in the squad at the Reebok Stadium after returning to Argentina for treatment on a knee injury, but Bruce has rubbished speculation suggesting the Argentinian has already been released from his contract, which has two more years to run.

"To be honest, he's not really been fit since the Benfica game in pre-season," he said. "He's gone back to see a specialist in Argentina, and we expect him to report back to us in the next 24 hours. The surgeon is involved in the (Argentina) national team and it's better for them to be able to speak in their native language.

"He's never got up to scratch, but in my opinion he's been injured and any talk of us ending his contract is a load of rubbish."