Black Cats’ international stars available for Accrington examination

Lee Johnson expects the Sunderland players who have travelled abroad over the last fortnight to be available for this afternoon’s game against Accrington Stanley.

Callum Doyle and Niall Huggins both flew to Europe and featured for England Under-19s and Wales Under-21s respectively during the international break.

Tom Flanagan also moved within the continent as he represented Northern Ireland, while Bailey Wright was part of Australia’s squad which played in Doha, Qatar, and Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

The aforementioned players had to display negative Covid-19 tests upon their returns, but should be able to feature against Accrington as the countries they visited are on the UK’s amber or green lists.

“They can come in on that sort of sportsman’s bubble and then they have to isolate,” said Johnson, when asked about the players who have been away on international duty.

“You won’t be seeing Bailey Wright going around Tesco today after coming back from Vietnam in an amber zone.

“He’s had one negative test and has to have another negative test second day in the country, and as long as that is good then he’s good to go.”

Sunderland are also assessing Corry Evans’ fitness situation, after the midfielder was forced to withdraw from the Northern Ireland squad with a hamstring injury.

Evans has missed Sunderland’s last four league games and has been stepping up his recovery at the Academy of Light during the international break.

“Corry is in a decent place,” Johnson added. “It was a bit too early for him to play, as Northern Ireland found out and Corry recognised, to go and play at the standard and level that he would expect to.

“He’s done really well and what we have used it as is sort of a mini pre-season for him.

“Don’t forget he missed a lot of pre-season and was chasing minutes in games, which probably led to the tweak.

“He’s such an important player for us and I like him even more than I thought I did when I was looking at him to sign him, both as a personality but more importantly because of his football intelligence for the team.”