Sunderland to 'live for matchdays' as Tony Mowbray admits fatigue concern

Sunderland will ‘live for the matchdays’ in the coming weeks, with Tony Mowbray admitting he is concerned about the volume of games.

Wednesday’s FA Cup fourth round replay against Fulham will be the first of six Sunderland games in the next two-and-a-half weeks.

Mowbray is already managing a tough situation with injuries, and he is expecting the number of games to cause additional problems there.

He, though, is confident the Sunderland coaching staff can adjust the players’ schedules to help get them through it without majors problems.

"The challenge is the attritional side of the league. Here we are, we have three, potentially four midweek games coming back-to-back with a squad of 14, 15 players if we're lucky.

"It's a massive ask to keep going to the well every three days. But it helps that we're a technical team rather than a robust fighting team that puts their body on the line. And yet in some games, like we found at the weekend, you have to do it if they don't allow you to get your passing rhythm going.

"[Millwall] were happy to break the game up and foul and stop us getting into passing rhythms. They broke it up pretty well. Hopefully in the Championship that's not the norm.

“Hopefully we can get our game going, we can control football matches and sometimes you don't need to do as much physical running and you can look after the players better.

"We will try to do that in the coming weeks. We need to try and keep the players fit, probably a programme of less training, more preparation and recovery time and let's live for the matchdays and get through the next few months."

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