Sunderland sweat on Whitehead

Posted on 8th December 2006

Sunderland are waiting on the fitness of Dean Whitehead ahead of the club's game with Luton Town tomorrow. Whitehead is suffering from a hamstring problem and has not trained all week. Meanwhile Stephen Wright is still out of action as he recovers from knee surgery. Also Nyron Nosworthy is not in contention as he is still struggling with an abdominal injury.

If Whitehead fails to make the game Sunderland manager Roy Keane will not have a tried and trusted right–back. Whitehead, while first and foremost a midfielder, has played at right–back on several occasions recently to cover for the injuries to Wright and Nosworthy.

"Dean's hamstring is still not quite right and he has not trained all week," said Keane. "We will have another look at him today and hopefully he will be fit, but if he does not come through then it leaves me with a problem. Nyron hasn't trained all week either and wasn't training today, so he is out. We've also had one or two players off with a bug. That means we're down to the bare bones again with probably only 12 or 14 players training this week. It's not ideal, but if we show desire, spirit and determination then we'll have a good chance this weekend."

However centre–back Stanislav Varga is available again after a suspension that ruled him out of last Saturday's win against Norwich. Keane said: "That's a positive, but the back four did very well and kept a clean sheet against Norwich. It's good to have Stan back though."

Earlier Sunderland news

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Black Cats must start to grind out results