Aji Alese and Timothee Pembele face a few more weeks on the sidelines, but Dennis Cirkin and Eliezer Mayenda could play for the U21s next week.
Aji Alese and Timothee Pembele have suffered injury setbacks which will further delay their integration into Sunderland’s Championship campaign. Centre-back Alese was back in training and nearing full fitness but has now aggravated the thigh injury that has sidelined him since his involvement in the Black Cats’ play-off semi-final defeat at Luton Town in May and will need an extra couple of weeks to recover, with boss Tony Mowbray determined to avoid bringing him back too soon given how things panned out at the end of last season.
And deadline day signing from Paris St-Germain Pembele was making good progress as he built his fitness following a long-term knee injury, but the full-back has also run into problems which will keep him out for at least another month. Prior to the international break, Mowbray had been hoping that both players would be ready to ease their way back into action with the U21s but that next step has been put on hold.
“Aji was out training with us and was just about back in the groove, but had to come out of a session the other day because he felt something in his thigh,” said Mowbray. “It’s been scanned and there is a slight bit of damage, but there is nothing major.
“It just means he’ll be out for another week or two while he picks up a bit of treatment, and we have to be really careful with Aji. He played for us in that Luton game because we were so lacking that physicality, but it damaged his thigh pretty badly.
“We have to be mindful of not rushing him back. He was almost there, he just felt a little tweak but that is very common in these scenarios.
“A couple of weeks, and I’m pretty sure Aji will be back.”
Of Pembele, he added: “Timothee was training well but he’s going to be at least four weeks away. I’m no physio but it seems as if there is a difference to the intensity of the training here and we’ve seen it with other players whereby they find it difficult to adjust
“So I think he’s going to be out for a few weeks, which is a shame because he was training and looking very athletic and talented. He’s picked up another injury but maybe sometime after the next international break, we’ll have to wait and see.
“I’d suggest it’s just a process for him to acclimatise.”
There is some good news on the injury front, however, with Dennis Cirkin back training again having last played at the beginning of September. The left-back has been out with a hamstring issue and, while this weekend’s trip to Stoke City will likely come too soon for him, he could be given some gametime for the U21s next week either in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Hibernian on Monday, or in their Premier League 2 game against Spurs at Eppleton next Friday evening.
Spanish striker Eliezer Mayenda has also been pencilled in for some minutes against Hibs as he nears a return from the hamstring problem he picked up in his very first training session with the club after joining over the summer. Mowbray said: “Dennis is on the training pitch.
“He started earlier in the week doing bits of the team session and then doing some work on his own, and has been steadily increasing from there. We’re managing him at the moment, ideally we’d get an U21 fixture in for him.
“He’s feeling pretty positive and he’s training well, he just isn’t quite as sharp as he would want to be just yet. Eliezer I’ve talked about before, he’s a real talent.
“He’s exceptionally sharp, direct and is going to catch the eye and upset a few players on the pitch I think. I’m hoping that he’ll be able to play part of the U21s game on Monday against Hibs because now he just needs to get his boots on and play some football.
“I’m not going to stick him on the bench before he’s even kicked a ball, we have to do it properly with him and keep building him up, but he is not far away now.”
