Sunderland Football Club News

• Nickname:Black Cats
• Founded:1879
• Manager:Martin O'Neill

• Ground:Stadium of light
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Sbragia ponders changes

21 Apr 2009 - 13:27:46

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Sunderland boss Ricky Sbragia expects both Kieran Richardson and Dean Whitehead to be fit enough to feature in this weekend's crunch clash at rock-bottom West Brom.

The midfield duo have stepped up their training this week as they near full fitness following recent injury lay-offs.

A delighted Sbragia told the Sunderland Echo: "It's that age old problem in football - you got players coming back who you'd expect to put straight into the first team. But do you change a winning team?

"What we'll do is simply see how they go in training this week and take it from there. Everyone's different in terms of how quickly they recover and how quickly they find their feet again.

"Kieran, for example, wasn't fit on Friday at all to play in Saturday's game against Hull. But he did a bit of training on Saturday morning and was desperate to be a sub.

"Deano wanted to play on Saturday but he couldn't have been any more than 70 per cent fit and you've got to be sensible sometimes in situations like those.

"Players will want to play but if they're not fit, that's when they can let you down or they can pick up injuries. The good thing is that we've got them back in training all this week.

"Kieran will be back in full training and I expect him to be available for the weekend and I expect Dean to be there or thereabouts too.

"It'll give me something to think about in terms of selection and it's likely the choice won't be easy. But these are the sort of selection problems every manager wants.

"It's far better to have to worry about which quality players to leave out than be worrying if you've got enough bodies to see you through games.

"The West Brom game is another important one for us and the bottom line is the stronger the squad we have, the better."