Michael Beale has called on Abdoullah Ba and Romaine Mundle to step up and offer a ‘solution’ to Sunderland losing Patrick Roberts to injury.
Roberts limped out of the defeat to Huddersfield on Wednesday, with Beale describing it as a ‘disaster’ to lose the winger so soon after he returned from another spell on the sidelines.
However, Sunderland have alternative options in youngsters Ba and Mundle, and Nazariy Rusyn is probably another possibility to fill that void.
Whoever plays, though, Beale has challenged them to grasp their opportunity.
"We have to work on our right side. We've lost our main starter but for Abdoullah and Romaine it's a big opportunity.
"We've scored a few goals from down that side of late, Abdoullah has been in decent enough form, we have to find a solution with the players we've got.
"In terms of Romaine, with how the week's gone and minutes they've had, they are going to have to share the minutes this weekend. I think it's fair to say you may see Romaine and Abdoullah sharing some minutes in that position."
The outlook isn’t sounding promising on Roberts at all, with it actually being a completely different injury to the one he picked up previously.
Although nothing is confirmed yet, it’s looking likely that Roberts will be missing for at least a month, a month during which Sunderland play a lot of top sides in the Championship.
"The scan is today, it's the other side of the hamstring to what he did earlier in the season, but we think it's very similar,” Beale said on Roberts.
"It's obviously a real sore one for us to take because we tried to manage his minutes. We were managing a calf and then managed to get a hamstring. It's horrible for Paddy and the team to be honest."
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