Luke O'Nien 'hopefully' available for Sunderland at West Brom

Sunderland may have to do without Luke O’Nien at West Brom, although Tony Mowbray says the club will do everything they possibly can to avoid it.

O’Nien’s wife is still due to give birth any day now, meaning the defender is understandably reluctant to venture too far from the North East.

That saw him left out of the squad for the recent away win at Cardiff, and he will again be on tenterhooks on Sunday when Sunderland travel to West Brom.

However, with Danny Batth joining Aji Alese and Dan Ballard on Sunderland’s injury list, Tony Mowbray is no longer in a position to accommodate O’Nien’s desire to remain close to home.

"We've got the situation with Luke O'Nien and his wife," said Mowbray. "The birth hasn't happened yet so we have to hope that that doesn't create an extra problem for us.

"We're trying to put some contingency plans in place - we were thinking 'helicopter' to be honest, but I don't think we will be doing that. I certainly won't be paying for it!

"Luke just needs to be clear in his mind that he can get to somewhere pretty quickly. We need to put some contingency plans in place, even if it's just a club car so that if, at any moment, he needs to leave then he needs to leave - that's what would happen.

"Rather than him driving his car down, we'll have a club car available for him to leave when it is necessary. I'm not sure yet whether he is getting on the bus with us or not, but I have spoken to him about the urgency of needing him to play in that one-and-a-half hour window.

"We need him to play but, if things don't allow that to happen and stuff happens around the time we need him, as I've always said, his family will come first and he will be allowed to go and be with his wife.

"He can see that we've been on board with his situation for a couple of weeks now and we will continue to do that.,

"We all hope that the one-and-a-half hour window on Sunday afternoon will be clear one way or another - either a successful birth in the next 24-36 hours or, or still waiting at 4pm on Sunday."

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