Tony Mowbray remains hopeful that Ellis Simms will be back in contention ahead of this weekend's clash with Preston North End. The Sunderland boss knows that his squad needs more competition for places given the strain of the Championship season.
The Black Cats have picked up seven points from his first four games in charge and have continued their impressive start to the campaign, sitting in a play-off berth during the international break. However, such is the nature of English football's second tier, all that work can be undone in the blink of an eye.
Mowbray knows that he needs his full squad to maintain that impressive start. Speaking to safc.com he said: "I think also as I walk round the building sometimes - I look at Ballard and he's ducking under doors, he's a monster of a boy - we need to get our best players [back fit], we need to deepen the squad by Ross and Ellis getting fit."
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The Sunderland boss revealed that Dennis Cirkin had returned to training this week and was back on the grass ahead of the game against Preston North-End, but is looking forward to welcoming back the likes of Dan Ballard and Niall Huggins from longer-term injuries.
"Also big Dan Ballard, Niall Huggins, players that can make the squad more competitive and everybody fighting for their place," Mowbray said. "Dennis Cirkin was back on the grass today, which was great.
"[We've had] Competition because of Aji Alese's performances in the couple [of games] he's played in has been fantastic. It's all encouraging at the moment but we've got games at home which are always tough.
"There's an expectation that you'll turn up at home and just win. Just roll teams over and yet this is a really hard attritional league and we'll have to work really hard and play at our best to pick up points."
Up next at the Stadium of Light is a Preston North End side that is resolute at the back, but has struggled in front of goal. Ryan Lowe's side have drawn six of their opening ten games, scoring three and conceding four goals.
"Looking forward to it," Mowbray said when asked about returning to the Stadium of Light. "Preston when you look at it, they've drawn six and have seven clean sheets. They've conceded four and scored three or something like that.
"The least goals against in the league so it's not going to be easy. They're going to come and make it really difficult. They'll fight for every ball."
Sunderland have scored five goals in their last two games, an impressive haul for a side with no recognised strikers. "If we play at our best, the individual talent of our wide attackers and our number 10's - hopefully Ellis might be closer by them we'll have to wait and see," said Mowbray. "We've got some options that can give them problems and we'll go our very best to try and win the game.
"It's a blow [to have no recognised striker], particularly with Ross who has started in this league very well, in the first game against Rotherham he scored a couple of goals and I felt he had huge confidence that we would create chances for him and he could take them. It's a blow but Ellis Simms has looked a physical threat as well.
"He's a young lad and has got a real opportunity to try and make his mark on this level of football. The number 10's - Pritchard, Embleton, Amad Diallo - whoever we want to throw into that mix, the wide strikers have been fantastic. Patrick scored two brilliant goals at Reading and Jack has scored some amazing goals as well so they're all dipping in.
"As I said a few weeks ago when the injuries came to the strikers, everyone has got to mix in. We need the centre-halves to score some headers from corners and free-kicks. We need the midfielders to score some long range drives into the bottom or top corner.
"That's what football is. When you haven't got your strikers everybody has to mix in and hopefully the goals come from different places."
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