Sunderland dealt injury blow as striker ruled out of key Leeds United clash

Sunderland will travel to face Leeds United on Tuesday night without Nazariy Rusyn, Mike Dodds has confirmed. The Black Cats make the trip to West Yorkshire this week on the back of a 0-0 draw with Bristol City over the weekend, which was seen as a huge improvement in terms of performance after starting last week with a 5-1 hammering against Blackburn Rovers.

As such, they will arrive at Elland Road with a degree of confidence, but as they look for just their second win since mid-February, Dodds had hoped to see Sunderland boast more of an attacking threat due to the return of Rusyn. The forward has been missing in recent weeks due to a calf issue and while he has only bagged two league goals this season, he has played his part during 21 appearances for the club.

However, Dodds has confirmed that the clash with Leeds will come too soon for the Ukrainian, and it seems there is a chance he could be forced to sit out of the club's five remaining fixtures.

“He’s not close,” Dodds admitted ahead of the game, per the Sunderland Echo. “He was out on the grass running today but he’s not with the group. He’s still going to be a couple of weeks and will probably be touch and go whether he’s back for the Sheffield Wednesday game.”

Rusyn is joined on the Black Cats sidelines by Corry Evans, Dennis Cirkin and Elliot Embleton, but there is also concern over the fitness of Trai Hume, who Leeds have actually been linked to in recent weeks.

“Trai picked up a little bit of a knock in the game but he got through it. There are one or two we are having to manage a little bit,” Dodds added on Monday.

“There is still 24 hours before the game so we’ll see how they react in the morning.”