Sunderland continue to deal with both good and bad news on their injury front.

While Regis Le Bris has been able to welcome back a handful of relatively long-term absentees of late, the Black Cats suffered a double setback against Hull City recently, with both Enzo Le Fée and Dan Ballard suffering hamstring injuries that are expected to keep them out of action for several weeks.

Unsurprisingly, then, injuries were a hot topic of discussion on this week’s edition of The Roar podcast, with Sunderland writers Phil Smith and James Copley taking an in-depth look at the current state of play on Wearside. You can watch the full episode here, or listen on Spotify here. But what exactly is the ongoing situation with Sunderland’s list of injury absences at the present moment in time?

When are Sunderland’s injured players expected to return?

Speaking on The Roar podcast, SAFC chief writer Phil Smith said: “Le Fée will definitely be back before the end of the season, unless he has a setback, but it was four to six weeks and it will be a fortnight on Saturday since he suffered his injury. So, all being well, he could be back for the last games of March after the international break. More realistically, you’re probably looking at early mid-April, but I think there’s every chance that he gets a few games running into that play-off campaign. So, at the moment, we shouldn’t have any negativity about Le Fée in terms of playing an impact at the end of the season.

“Ballard’s obviously going to be a bit tighter in terms of having another couple of weeks off the back of that. So, with Ballard, hopefully, he’ll be fit for the play-offs, but it’ll also be about how much match fitness he can get before that.