The Irreplaceable Five: Which players can Sunderland just not afford to lose to injury?

Sunderland have a lot of talent in the squad, but five players appear downright irreplaceable at the moment. Is that too many?

Sunderland’s summer transfer window created a lot of debate among fans, with many believing the squad was left too thin in too many areas.

At least some of that is simply a consequence of the transfer model at the club right now of deliberately signing young players to develop for the long term while accepting results will suffer in the short term.

Alex Neil apparently didn’t like that and it was a claimed it was a key reason he left for Stoke, and you won’t find a shortage of fans who agree with him.

Whatever your stance on the state of the Sunderland squad and the implementation of the recruitment policy last summer, we have probably seen enough now to judge what we have – and what we don’t have.

And, for now at least, it appears there are five players that the Sunderland squad currently look ill-equipped to replace.

Anthony Patterson

I am happy to admit that I had some serious doubts coming into the season about Anthony Patterson.

Those doubts have never been about his potential, but there is a big difference between having potential and being ready to be a number one in the Championship.

After all, for all Patterson had done well, the sum total of his experience coming into this season was half a season of League One football and a dozen of so games for National League side Notts County.

No, I don’t have any problem at all in admitting I had visions of another possible Lee Camp/Jason Steele situation this season, especially when Alex Bass was signed as an obvious number two.

Things are very different now, though. Patterson has comprehensively proven people like me wrong to the point that now you have genuine fear of what happens if he gets an injury. Certainly, I am not sure there is much about Bass’ previous career that suggests Sunderland would be equipped to cope with such a scenario.

Ross Stewart

We’ve all been over this literally on a weekly basis for best part of two months now, but Kristjaan Speakman took a major gamble by going into the season with just two recognised strikers.

Ellis Simms has looked excellent alongside Ross Stewart, but whether or not he can replace him and lead the line alone is still a major unknown. His performance against Cardiff definitely caused concerns, although his lack of football recently due to injury may have been a reason for that.

It’s all immaterial, really. The fact is that Ross Stewart is without doubt irreplaceable for Sunderland right now. He is that much a complete centre forward at this level that you’re going to feel his absence no matter what you do.

Hopefully he will only be missing for one more match, signs a nice shiny new contract soon, and then never gets injured again. Never.

Corry Evans

This time last season the knives were out a little for Corry Evans and understandably so. He was anonymous too often.

Since then, though, I think we have all come to appreciate the Northern Irishman almost as much as we did his brother back in the day.

Ironically, Evans perhaps isn’t the club’s best central midfield player, but he is the only one who can do what he does. That much was abundantly clear in his absence against Cardiff. There is every chance that both Dan Neil and Abdoullah Ba will go on and have better careers than Evans, although they both showed they are not yet even close to being able to deputise for him.

Evans is the only real leader in the midfield ranks too, and you genuinely do worry what would happen if he suffered a lengthy absence.

Danny Batth

The importance of Danny Batth to Sunderland this season has probably been exaggerated by the injury to Dan Ballard, although he’s very much a key player regardless.

Batth is a no-nonsense defender and a leader who is battle-hardened at this level, and he offers some rare physical presence in what can often be a bit of a soft Sunderland lineup.

There are others who can replace some of what he does: Bailey Wright has his experience and leadership, for example, and Aji Alese has his physical presence. That said, you do feel Sunderland would be a significantly weaker side without Batth in it for any real length of time.

Alex Pritchard

Alex Pritchard is a quality player for Sunderland, but is he irreplaceable? Perhaps I am just overreacting to the Cardiff performance there? I am honestly not sure.

Pritchard, like Evans, improved Sunderland a lot when he came off the bench in that match, and the stats say he is right up there with the most consistently creative players in the Championship too.

With that said, there is a lot of attacking talent in this Sunderland side and perhaps Pritchard’s stats are down to greater opportunity than anything else. With Elliot Embleton, Patrick Roberts and Amad Diallo able to slot into his position, there is a little strength in depth there.

We could be about to find out for sure, though. Pritchard is out of contract in the summer and there are murmurs within football that he could join Alex Neil at Stoke in January to make room for Blackburn’s Bradley Dack to reunite with Tony Mowbray on Wearside.

It’s certainly an interesting one to keep an eye on, but Pritchard still feels like a pretty vital cog in the Sunderland machine for now.