DICK ADVOCAAT is weighing up whether to recall Lee Cattermole in a bid to shore up his leaky Sunderland team ahead of a trip to Manchester United when they will come face-to-face with French wonderkid Anthony Martial.

After failing to keep Premier League hot-shots Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne quiet at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday night, the Black Cats will spend the next few days trying to come up with a way to stop Martial and Wayne Rooney.

Sunderland have conceded 17 goals in the first half of their eight matches so far and they have only won one of those, which was a 6-3 victory over League Two’s Exeter City when they visited the North-East last month.

The record smacks of a side in trouble and one propping up the top-flight table, despite the fact Sunderland actually look quite dangerous on the attack following the arrivals of Fabio Borini, Jeremain Lens and Ola Toivonen.

“If we keep our shape and discipline we have the players to hurt teams,” said Sunderland skipper John O’Shea. “That’s why we need to defend together and move forward together as a unit.

“It’s important we do that to keep teams out because if we do that we do have the players to hurt teams. We have shown against teams like Manchester City in the past that we can keep our shape for 90 minutes, so we have to show we can do that against all the teams at the minute.”

The immediate problem facing Sunderland is that they now head to Old Trafford, where Manchester United have suddenly found an extra gear following the arrival of Martial from Monaco for an initial £36m.

The 19-year-old has already scored against Liverpool and Southampton in his first two league outings for the Red Devils, which does not bode well for the men from Wearside after conceding a number of cheap goals already this season.

“We were unfortunate against City but we have to go to Old Trafford now, knowing United had a good result against Southampton, and we have to go there and cause problems,” said O’Shea.

“Look, after Aguero it’s Martial but that’s what we want. That’s why you stay in the Premier League, you want to test yourselves against these boys and we want that to continue.”

Sunderland’s defence is desperately in need of extra protection and is crying out for the return of Cattermole, provided he can recapture his own best form.

The former Middlesbrough midfielder lost his place after two disappointing displays against Leicester and Aston Villa, but he was an effective second half substitute against Manchester City.

O’Shea, without talking about individuals, knows something needs to be done to sort of out their problems at the back.

“Whatever it is we have to make sure we are working hard on the training ground to get the results,” he said. “Whatever problems we are having it is only on the training ground where you can work on things and get things right.

“We need to make sure we don’t make the mistakes if we want to help ourselves. When we attack we have to make sure we recover because more and more teams work on counter attack these days.

“Against that pace like City had it will be difficult. It’s not just the counter attacks, it’s everything. It’s the back four, the goalkeeper, the front unit, it’s everything.

“We switched off at times on Tuesday and you can’t afford to do that. We gave them a test at times but it was one of those where we shot ourselves in the foot.

“We regrouped after their goals and that is good, we kept a clean sheet in the second half. Obviously their tempo was probably not as intense as it was in the first half. But there were positives.”