Tony Mowbray faces tricky team selection dilemma ahead of Birmingham City

Transcript

00:00 you sign these players to give them opportunities and that's what the whole project is about at

00:04 Sunderland, is giving young players opportunities. But it would never ever have been in Mowbray's

00:10 head to play them both at the same time and I do think that given both players' full debuts,

00:15 their first taste of a start in the Championship at once, I think it's going to be too much to ask

00:20 and so I think he's going to have to find a way around it. His decisions in recent weeks suggest

00:25 he sees Silta slightly further ahead of Triantis. He's the one who's been on the bench, he's the

00:29 one who he's brought on. If you think back to Nelk Huggins' injury against Middlesbrough, it was

00:33 Silt who came on. So I think he'll play and then I think he's going to have to get a little bit

00:38 funky. I think you have to bring Dennis Serkin back in because ultimately he is a good defender

00:43 and he is an experienced player now and the question then is, do you play Hume at centre

00:48 half and move Huggins across or do you switch to a back three and play Hume and Serkin either side

00:53 of probably Silt? I think that's probably what I would do because if you think back to last year

00:57 when we also had no defenders, which was kind of a theme for the second half of last season,

01:02 think back to games against West Brom, that was something Mowbray did really well. He shifted

01:06 his full backs into the middle of the pitch and they handled it really well and so I think that's

01:11 what he's got to do. I just think, although we want to see Silt and Triantis given opportunities,

01:16 I think that is important. I think doing it in one game, both of them their full debuts,

01:21 for me that's just a bit of a risk too far. You've written about this extensively on the website,

01:27 peace is due out tonight. You also mentioned in that piece Phil about Adji Alisi, there'll be some

01:33 Sunderland fans who are keen for his return. What's his situation, how likely is he to come

01:38 back into the fold, what's going on? Yeah, I think