James Collins

By The Black Cats
January 19 2009

Sunderland Boss Ricky Sbragia will seek defensive reinforcements this week after the club's resources were stretched to breaking point on Saturday. Both Nyron Nosworthy and Danny Collins were forced out of the game against Aston Villa with injuries, leaving coach Ricky Sbragia down to the bare bones with a cup tie coming up this weekend and vital Premier League games to follow. First-team regulars Nosworthy and Collins are being assessed today but with left-back George McCartney still some way from match fitness, Sunderland effectively have only four fit defenders.

Pascal Chimbonda, Anton Ferdinand, Paul McShane and Phil Bardsley finished the game against Villa but Sbragia now has no regular left-back and no cover at centre-half.

At a push, both Dean Whiteheand and Kieran Richardson can fill in at full-back but the situation is not ideal and, after talks with chairman Niall Quinn, Sbragia will look to the unfolding transfer market to see what his options are.

Also, by playing Whitehead and Richardson as full backs we are severely limiting our midfield selction.

With McCartney on the way back and McShane recalled from his loan at Hull City, Sbragia had been toying with the possibility of not dipping into the transfer market this month.

But with the new injuries and two games in the space of 4 days Sbragia needs some more defensive cover.

Another player Sunderland have been linked with is West Ham centre-half James Collins, a former team-mate of Ferdinand and McCartney.

For the moment, Sbragia is assessing the damage left by the weekend's game and the prospect that first-team regular Nyron Nosworthy will be out for at least the next month.

The manager said: "I think Nyron will be out for four to five weeks – it's a hamstring. He's torn it.

"As for Danny, we knew he had a problem with his vision and that's why we brought him off sooner than we would have done.

"We tried to make one substitution in the game but ended up having to make two as a result of the injuries."

Both of the injured players were having a great game keeping both Young and Agbonlahor quiet.

Collins even opened his Sunderland scoring account after 11 minutes on saturday with a looping header to put the Red and Whites in front.