Dennis Cirkin is set to see a specialist in London in the hope he will be given the all-clear to resume training later this week. The defender is still suffering the after-effects of concussion having been knocked unconscious as he headed Sunderland's equaliser at Millwall at the beginning of February.
The Black Cats followed the FA's concussion protocols and Cirkin was cleared to play ten days after he had sustained the injury, but after just three outings he reported dizzy spells and has not played since coming off after an hour of Sunderland's game at Rotherham United on February 21. The 20-year-old has been able to take part in non-contact training to keep up his general fitness, but he will not be able to rejoin Sunderland's Championship campaign until he is able to train fully and has proved he is 100 percent.
"Dennis has been on the grass, not training with the team, but he has been training with the physio department," said boss Tony Mowbray. "He has to return to London tomorrow to see the specialist he has been under for his concussion protocols and if they give him the green light to progress he will get back into training, but not at the moment.
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"The specialist will probably give him a timescale. The last discussion we had with him about training with the team was that he could train with the team but not have any contact.
"The reality of football is that you can't really play with no contact, so he is training on his own at the moment with the physios to try to keep his physical data up so that when he is ready to come back in the team he has done everything apart from having people barging into him and challenging for headers and tackles. We'll wait and see what the specialist says tomorrow.
"If he gets the confidence from the specialist tomorrow, then hopefully he could be back in training on Thursday and he won't have to train for a week or two to get his fitness up because he's done the physical work."
While Cirkin has been out of action, Aji Alese has been operating at left-back but he picked up a season-ending thigh injury in the home defeat against Stoke City ten days ago. Luke O'Nien came off the bench to replace him at half-time against the Potters and he started the weekend win at Norwich City, and is expected to start against Sheffield United at the Stadium of Light tomorrow night.
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