JORDAN WILLIS and Tom Flanagan are both back in contention for Sunderland’s home game against Portsmouth tomorrow.

The defensive duo failed to make the starting line-up for Tuesday’s win over Crewe, with Willis absent from the squad entirely and Flanagan only deemed fit enough to make a late substitute appearance.

They are back in full training now though, and will pushing for a return to the starting line-up when Pompey visit the Stadium of Light tomorrow.

Sunderland boss Phil Parkinson said: “Jordan initially had a big lump that came up on his foot, which we were worried about. We had an X-ray, which was clear, and that’s settled down a lot. Did we need to push him for Tuesday? No. But he’s a lot closer for this game.

“Tom is fine. We were a bit worried about him, and he had to go for an MRI scan, but the specialist was happy for him to continue.”

Deadline-day signing Dion Sanderson is another defender who has been working his way back to full fitness as he arrived having been forced to miss a handful of training sessions with his parent club, Wolves.

Parkinson said: “Dion came in on Friday, but he had missed a bit of training at Wolves. Wolves marked our card prior to him joining us on Monday, and told us that he needed to do some training before we exposed him to playing because he’d missed a bit of work. We had to be fair to him and make sure he was ready.”