Mike Dodds confirms two Sunderland selection decisions ahead of Sheffield Wednesday clash

Mike Dodds has confirmed that neither Dennis Cirkin nor Nazariy Rusyn will return to action in Sunderland’s final Championship fixture against Sheffield Wednesday.

Dodds says both are back in training but Saturday’s game will come too soon. In Cirkin’s case, the key is to be ready for a huge pre-season campaign after an injury-hit season. Dodds is confident that will be the case with the left back making significant progress in recent weeks.

"Dennis won't be involved - he's trained with the group and as I said a couple of weeks ago, it's that risk/reward in terms of do we look to involve him and speed the process up a little bit to try and get him on the pitch, or do we accept the fact that it's a couple of weeks too early,” Dodds said.

“Dennis won't be involved but he seems to be going in the right direction and fingers crossed everything looks set for him to have a really strong pre-season and then go on to show everyone what a wonderful footballer he is.”

Rusyn has been absent since the last international break with a calf problem but has returned to training this week.

"Nazariy has started training this week but he won't be involved,” Dodds said.

“He's fine, he's had this issue with his calf and if we had one more game, I think he would have featured in that. But it's just one week too early, I think."

Dodds could give young winger Tommy Watson another chance to impress this weekend after calling up to the matchday squad for the 1-0 defeat to Watford last time out. The interim boss is therefore selecting from the same group of players as last week.