MICK McCARTHY is facing an anxious 72 hours as he assesses the extent of Sunderland's triple injury blow ahead of two of the club's most important games of the season.

The Black Cats travel to play-off hopefuls Queens Park Rangers on Saturday before the eagerly-anticipated top of the table clash with Wigan at the JJB Stadium next Tuesday.

But, after the full squad returned to training on Monday following a week off, McCarthy is waiting on the fitness of three players who have come back from international duty with problems.

Full-back George McCartney looks almost certainly to be missing for the weekend trip to Loftus Road after picking up a hip and groin injury last week which sidelined him for Northern Ireland's defeat to England at Old Trafford.

But the news on Gary Breen's knee injury, suffered in training with the Republic of Ireland, is favourable.

The Sunderland skipper has returned to Wearside prematurely, but only as a precautionary measure and there is a strong chance he will have recovered in time to face QPR.

McCarthy's other worry is young defender Danny Collins. Collins has been diagnosed with glandular fever while away with the Wales squad and he could be out of action for some time.

The former Chester City man would have been in strong contention to replace McCartney on Saturday at left-back.

Now, most likely, is that Argentinian Julio Arca, who has played left-midfield for most of the season, will be asked to play in his more preferred withdrawn role and that could mean either Sean Thornton or Andy Welsh drafted in as a winger.

Whichever side McCarthy eventually decides on he will be hoping that there is no repeat of Sunderland's showing the last time they had to field a patched up defence.

Back in November, when Breen and Stephen Wright were both missing, Sunderland went to Millwall and lost 2-0.

But centre-back Steve Caldwell insists the whole squad this time around are focused on performing to their best in an attempt to gain maximum points from their next two away fixtures.

And, if they can pick up a six points haul, Caldwell believes Sunderland can go into the final five matches of the season - three of which are home games to Reading, Leicester and Stoke - confident.

"We'll be going into the away games looking to win. We have never changed our approach to games all season so we won't start now," said the Scot.

"Then we need to win our remaining three home games and we are coinfident we can. Things are going really well but things certainly aren't finished yet."

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