Tony Mowbray hopes Ross Stewart will be fit to join in Sunderland's pre-season preparations after being ruled out for the remainder of the current campaign. The Scotland international striker is due to undergo surgery next week after suffering a serious Achilles injury in last weekend's FA Cup fourth round tie at Fulham.
The loss of their 11-goal top scorer is a major blow for the Black Cats but it is understood that the injury is not as bad as was initially feared, meaning he could be out for three or four months rather than an even longer spell. Mowbray is reluctant to put an exact timescale on Stewart's return but he held out the possibility that the 26-year-old could be back in time for pre-season training.
"As the days roll on he becomes more and more positive," said Mowbray of the former Ross County man. "He is still on crutches with his big, protective, plastic boot on while he waits for surgery.
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"He is bright and positive - footballers come to terms with these things, they understand that they have a task in front of them and there will be a period of time where it is going to be really hard work to get back to where you need to be. Once they get through the initial disappointment and frustration, upset, anger, whatever the emotion, then they have to prepare themselves for the work ahead and that's what Ross is doing.
"He wants his operation as quickly as he can have it done so he can start the process of getting back, and we be here to support him as much as we can and hopefully it will be a smooth transition back to playing whenever that might be - pre-season, hopefully, we'll have to wait and see. It's not a brand-new injury that no-one has ever had. The people in the medical department will have a clear plan for him.
"Let's hope he is back out on the pitch again soon and in pre-season we see him doing the work and getting his core fitness ready to play."
In the immediate aftermath of the injury at Craven Cottage, the concern was that Stewart had suffered a total rupture of the Achilles but it appears that he has sustained a less severe tear - albeit one that will still require an operation to fix. Mowbray said: "I don't know what the worst-case scenario would be.
"I think the best thing is that the repair - there were conversations around it being conservative or a repair - and the decision has been to do the repair. People talk about percentages of tears and what have you, but they're going to just repair it.
"Whether it's five percent, ten percent, 20 percent, damage, just get it repaired so it is 100 percent again. I'm not a medic, I don't know whether they cut it completely and refix it or whether they just stitch it or whatever, but Ross is pretty happy with the procedure that's going to happen.
"He's going to have an operation and then there will be a timescale on it and he will work hard to get back as soon as he can."
Stewart has already missed three-and-a-half months of the season after picking up a thigh in jury at the beginning of September, but he returned in December in blistering form as he scored six goals in eight games in all competitions. "For the football team, losing him is a huge blow," said Mowbray.
"I don't know the ratio in terms of goals-per-game, but it seemed like almost every time he went on the pitch he scored. He's also a big personality around the group and the team feels safer with him on the pitch, confident we can score, and it's really good to have a footballer like that.
"When I first arrived he scored two in my first game [at home to Rotherham] and then got injured in the warm-up before the next game [Middlesbrough away] and missed three months. Let's just hope he is back as quickly as possible, and at 100 percent."
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