David Healy

By The Black Cats
April 9 2009

Sunderland and Northern Ireland International Striker David Healy has a groin injury and is a major doubt for the game with Manchester United on Saturday. Healy picked up the injury while on international duty with Northern Ireland last week.

The 29-year-old was named in the squad for last Saturday's trip to West Ham but has since aggravated the problem in training.

Manager Ricky Sbragia said: "David came back from the Northern Ireland game last week with a slight groin injury.

"He was in the squad for West Ham but felt it again on Sunday so we pulled him out of training and he hasn't trained for the last couple of days.

"We'll know on Friday whether it's a short term or long term injury."

Fellow Northern Ireland teammate George McCartney will also miss the clash with Manchester United.

"George's struggling," Sbragia said. "It looks as if he'll be missing for a week or two weeks as he's got a bad calf injury.

"We'd hoped to get some of the players back from injury for this game as we've not got the biggest of squads."

Manchester United look like they will be missing Johnny Evans, the youngster, who spent two loan spells at the Stadium of Light, limped out of United's 2-2 Champions league tie with Porto on Tuesday night.