SUNDERLAND were hit with another midfield blow yesterday, but Seb Larsson thinks he has seen proof that fight and spirit exists within David Moyes’ squad to preserve Premier League status.

Next month will be crucial in the fight to stay up and Gabon’s Didier Ndong became the first Black Cats player to be notified that he will be heading to his homeland to take part in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Centre-backs Lamine Kone, almost certainly with Ivory Coast, and Papy Djilobodji, overlooked for the last couple of years by Senegal, are also in contention to appear in the tournament that begins on January 14.

Ndong’s call-up will stretch Moyes’ midfield options further. The Sunderland boss is already without injured quartet Jan Kirchhoff, Lee Cattermole, Paddy McNair and Lynden Gooch. Jack Rodwell is close to a return.

The 22-year-old, an expensive £16m buy from Lorient, looks certain to miss the FA Cup third round tie against Burnley. He will be absent for the Premier League matches with Stoke City and West Brom. If Gabon progress beyond the group stage he would be away for games with Tottenham and Crystal Palace.

Ndong’s inclusion was uncertain because he had fallen out with coach Jose Antonio Garrido in November for missing training to attend the birth of his child. He had not asked for permission and later apologised.

He has played in all but one of Sunderland’s Premier League games so far and against Manchester United on Boxing Day his error led to Paul Pogba laying on the crucial second for Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the 3-1 defeat.

Larsson was part of a three-man Sunderland midfield along with Ndong and Jason Denayer and the former insists there is still plenty of room for optimism after giving themselves a chance of survival with the four wins from seven matches before the trip to Old Trafford.

“Things aren’t all negative, without a doubt,” said Larsson. “We are obviously still suffering from our start to the season, the first ten games, but even though we have had a much better spell in the last seven games - which would normally see you away from trouble - we are still catching up.

“We have brought it up a lot closer and we have to keep going. We need to keep playing like we have in the last seven or eight games and that should sort us out. We have improved defensively, we will analyse this and move on. We worked hard as a team and the fight is there as a team.”

Even though Sunderland lost convincingly in the end at Manchester United, they still performed well until conceding the two late goals. The first was an error from Ndong and then Denayer was guilty of a sloppy pass before Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s moment of magic made sure of the outcome.

Larsson said: “The biggest disappointment is we feel we have given two goals away, and possibly even the first one as well. We felt we got into the game pretty nicely in the first half, we weren’t under ridiculous pressure.

“I do think the first one was a sloppy one to concede and we said at half-time there would be tough spells in the second half and there was, but we had a chance right through until they scored the second.

“We felt we were getting into it again but we gave away sloppy goals and you can’t gift Manchester United goals like that. If they had scored wonderful goals then you hold your hands up but we shot ourselves in the foot. That was the shame.

“We probably should have been in front but you can’t gift United anything. We were doing a decent job in containing them but then we gave away a couple of freebies. We have to learn from it and move on and look to Saturday.”

Sunderland head to Turf Moor on New Year’s Eve knowing they will head into 2017 out of the bottom three if they claim three points to climb above Crystal Palace, who face Arsenal on New Year’s Day.

Larsson said: “Burnley is a big game, let’s be honest. After the start we made to our season then every single game when we come up against a team you feel you have a chance of beating is massive. It’s no different on New Year’s Eve and hopefully we can get three points. They are doing well at home, our focus will be on it from Wednesday.”