Sunderland receive Fletcher fitness boost

The Scotland striker limped off after 50 minutes of last Saturday's 2-0 home loss to Arsenal, but has since shaken off the effects of that knock.

Sunderland manager Gus Poyet confirmed: "Steven is perfect, there is no problem now. He has completely recovered and trained for the last two days."

Emanuele Giaccherini, Ricky Alvarez, Billy Jones and Sebastian Coates are all still missing, though, as Sunderland look to recover from two straight defeats.

Poyet's side suffered an embarrassing 8-0 thrashing in their most recent away game at Southampton and the Uruguayan urged his men to cut out the errors.

"We have been working hard and, especially, going back to basics - making sure we are a difficult team to play against," added Poyet.

"We must try to avoid bad, bad mistakes. We need to get rid of all that and get back to the team we were for the first seven games.

"I think we were close to that against Arsenal but then came the bad errors which cost us again.

"However, that's football - even Lionel Messi can miss a penalty."