Tony Mowbray has revealed just how limited Sunderland's options were going into their New Year's Day game at Blackpool after a sickness bug spread through the camp. The Black Cats came from behind to earn a 1-1 draw at Bloomfield Road as they ended the Christmas period with seven points from a possible nine.
Sunderland had stayed in the North-West between Thursday night's win at Wigan and the visit to Blackpool, using the facilities at Manchester United's Carrington training base to prepare. But Mowbray had a major problem ahead of the Blackpool game, with several players suffering from illness while others including Danny Batth, Lynden Gooch, Dennis Cirkin, Niall Huggins, Aji Alese, Alex Pritchard, and long-term casualty Elliot Embleton, were all ruled out through injury.
Luke O'Nien played despite not feeling 100 percent due to illness, while Corry Evans was named on the bench but with no realistic chance of playing because he had also fallen victim to the bug. "We've had a lot of illness in the camp and maybe that was partly why we started slowly," said Mowbray.
