Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray admits Ellis Simms is likely to remain sidelined for at least the next few weeks with a toe injury.
The Everton loanee picked up the knock in the first half-hour of the Black Cats’ 3-0 win at Reading in mid-September, putting a sudden halt to a promising start to life in the north east - he had scored three goals in eight Championship appearances up until that point.
What was initially an innocuous injury has taken far longer than anticipated to ease, with Mowbray initially describing the 21-year-old’s chances of facing Watford less than 72 hours later as ‘touch and go’. But before last weekend’s 0-0 draw, the Sunderland boss ruled Simms out again and put the ball in Everton’s court as to next steps.
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“Our diagnosis is that there seems to be some ligament damage on his big toe – it doesn't look like he's ready to play for us this weekend,” Mowbray said last week. “We'll wait and see what Everton want to do and what their assessment is. Ultimately, it will always be the parent club who guides these decisions.”
And now, speaking ahead of Tuesday’s game against Blackpool at the Stadium of Light, the Black Cats’ manager explained how important it is to be cautious when rehabilitating such a unique problem.
“Ellis’ situation won’t be changing over the next week or two, I don’t think,” Mowbray told the press. "I’m hoping I’ll surprise you all in two or three weeks by saying Ellis is back training and you might see him on the bench, but at the moment, that’s not the case.
“We have to be cautious with him. If you picture the injury, it’s his big toe, it’s a ligament and it needs some time to settle down. I don’t think it’s a case of ‘strap it up, lock the bottom half of his foot solid, and just put it in a boot’.
“If it was a cup final, the last day of the season, and we needed to win, we’d probably play him. But that’s not the case. Give him the time he needs, a couple of weeks, and hopefully we’ll have some news.”
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