Sunderland manager David Moyes has admitted that the club's growing injury list is "a problem" as they look to get their season up and running.
The Black Cats are rock bottom of the Premier League table after a dismal return of just two points from their opening seven games of the campaign.
Speaking to the media today, Moyes revealed that Lamine Kone and Jason Denayer picked up injuries during the international break, joining the likes of Vito Mannone, Fabio Borini, Seb Larsson, Lee Cattermole and Adnan Januzaj on the treatment table.
"We have one or two doubts coming back from international duty – there is a doubt about Jason Denayer and there is certainly one over Lamine Kone as well," he said. "Those two are the biggest concerns but we've also had one or two people out for a while now, so we have a lengthy list at the moment.
"It's part of football and every football club has injuries so you're always looking to see why you have them, but ours have all been in games, whereas if it happened in training you can look at what you're doing and the amount.
"That's the one good thing about it – it is nothing we're doing at the training ground – but it's a problem that we're getting injuries because we don't have a strong enough squad to cope with our better players being out of the team."
Sunderland visit fellow strugglers Stoke City when Premier League action resumes tomorrow.
