JACK ROSS admits Sunderland’s lengthy injury list has made it harder for him to impose his ideas and philosophy on the first-team squad at the Stadium of Light.

It is now almost four months since Ross was appointed as Chris Coleman’s successor, and the Scotsman has made significant progress in a number of areas as he looks to draw a line under previous failures and kick-start Sunderland’s climb back up the leagues.

However, when it comes to overhauling the prevailing culture on Wearside, the 42-year-old admits his task has been made more difficult by the number of players confined to the treatment room.

When he took charge at the end of May, Ross inherited Duncan Watmore, who has still not kicked a ball after suffering a recurrence of a cruciate ligament injury last season, and Aiden McGeady, who made his first appearance of the season last weekend after recovering from a serious ankle problem.

Tom Flanagan was injured in pre-season, forcing him to miss the first month of the campaign, Jerome Sinclair picked up a problem shortly after joining from Watford and both Donald Love and Alim Ozturk have spent time on the treatment table. Charlie Wyke was struggling with a knee problem after moving from Bradford City, and faces another two months on the sidelines after suffering further damage in last weekend’s defeat at Burton Albion.

Ross is still to enjoy a week where he can work with the whole of his first-team squad, and when it comes to buying into his methods and preferred approach, he concedes some players are at a much more advanced stage than others.

“Some of the players are probably further ahead in terms of understanding what we want because the injured ones aren’t on the training pitch every day,” said the Sunderland boss. “They’re not always in the analysis meetings because we stagger when players are coming in for rehab and training to avoid players sitting about.

“The evolution of what you do can be missed by some of them. Duncan, for example, will miss quite a lot of these things because he’s missed quite a lot through rehab.

“Tom is different because he did a lot of pre-season with us, so he’s a bit more aware, but they’re still playing catch-up in that respect.

“I know a lot of people think when you get a player back from injury it’s just physical and fitness. But every single week they stayed healthy, they become more accustomed to what we’re trying to do.”

Last weekend’s defeat at the Pirelli Stadium was Sunderland’s first major setback under Ross, and while he accepts there was never any chance of going through a season without suffering a few disappointments, he will be demanding a strong reaction when his side returns to action against Rochdale on Saturday.

He has been generally satisfied with Sunderland’s progress in the first six weeks of the season, but accepts he and his players are still in the formative stages of their development. Given the extent to which failure had become entrenched, it was never going to be easy to turn things around.

“As a team, are they an absolute reflection of how we’re trying to do things? Maybe not,” he said. “But I’ve been delighted with what they’ve given me, how resilient they’ve been and their response to going behind in games.

“We can get better in every aspect of the game, and they also believe that. That’s important as a manager because if they’re sitting there thinking, ‘Do you know what? I’m giving my absolute maximum’ you might have an issue. They all know, individually, some of them can improve, and as a group we’ll get stronger and better.”

* Josh Maja has been named the EFL Young Player of the Month for August. The 19-year-old, who emulates Dele Alli and Wilfried Zaha by winning the award, scored in Sunderland’s opening four League One matches.