Patchwork Cats side, with 11 men out
David Moyes is facing yet another injury crisis with 11 senior players set to be missing for tomorrow’s trip to Chelsea.
Didier Ndong and Lamine Kone have joined an already significant list of absentees in the aftermath of Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at Arsenal.
Jan Kirchhoff, Paddy McNair and Duncan Watmore are all long-term absentees, but Moyes is missing a number of other players.
Steven Pienaar is still missing with an ankle sprain, while George Honeyman is recovering from a back injury.
Ndong and Kone both have dead legs, while Papy Djilobodji, not in the squad at Arsenal, is battling a thigh problem.
Jason Denayer, Victor Anichebe and Wahbi Khazri will all also be missing. Khazri has a knee problem, Anichebe is struggling with his hamstring and Denayer with his ankle.
It means loanees Adnan Januzaj and Javier Manquillo are likely to be required to play. Moyes said: “I don’t want to lose, I certainly don’t want us to embarrassed, that’s for sure.
“My biggest problem is that we’ve got 11 senior players out injured, which I’m nearly back to the worst time of the season, I’ve had to write them down!
“We’ll have to put a patchwork team out to try and get a positive performance. I thought the performance against Arsenal was positive for lots of reasons, we didn’t get the result but we were obviously up against opposition of a much higher level than us.”
Moyes also confirmed that the Black Cats will release their retained list in the next week. Eight players are out of contract this summer, including club stalwarts John O’Shea and Seb Larsson.
Moyes has previously confirmed that he will to try to keep some players who ‘know the club’ for another year as they look to bounce back into the Premier League at the first time of asking.
He said: “We won’t put names out yet, but the players all know and we’re in discussions with quite a few of their agents etc. The chief executive is dealing with that. After the season, there’ll be a retained list, as you’d expect.”