SUNDERLAND have a plan in place in case Bailey Wright’s wife gives birth during the two-week period of the League One play-offs.

The Black Cats travel to Lincoln City for the first leg of their semi-final on Wednesday night, with the return game due to take place at the Stadium of Light on Saturday afternoon. The winners will head to Wembley to face either Blackpool or Oxford United in the play-off final on Sunday, May 30.

Wright’s wife is due to give birth on the day of the final, but the baby could arrive at short notice at any time, potentially causing logistical problems for Sunderland’s play-off preparations.

Wright is one of the most important players in Lee Johnson’s squad, and a guaranteed starter provided he is available, so Sunderland’s head coach has discussed the situation with the centre-half this week and together they have come up with a plan to deal with all eventualities.

“You’re always conscious not to show your hand too early as a football manager because you can get little knocks and niggles, or poor form or attitude errors all the way building up into the week,” said Johnson, when asked about his team selection for Wednesday’s first leg. “But you also have to remember these are all human beings with partners and families.

“Bailey Wright’s wife is due to give birth on the day of the play-off final. Obviously, leading up to it, with the Lincoln games, there’s a potential that the baby may well come early.

"The due date is bang on point for the play-off final day, so there’s a lot of logistics that we’re having to go through to make sure that we still get Bailey Wright, but also that Bailey Wright still gets to see his baby if we get to that point.”

Johnson did not want to go into too much detail when it came to discussing injury issues today, although he did concede that “a couple” of first-team players will be unavailable for the game at Sincil Bank.

He also revealed that one or two senior players will return to the squad on Wednesday, and expects whittling his current group down to a matchday party of 18 to be one of the toughest challenges he will face ahead of kick-off.

“We’ll probably have a surplus in the squad,” he said. “I’ll probably have a couple of sleepless nights, not so much on the team, but more on the bench, which is always the one that causes me the problem because you never want to leave anybody out of that matchday squad.

“We’ll certainly travel down with 20, 21 players. There’s a couple out, which I won’t reveal as of yet. But at the same time, there’s also a couple back, which is important.”

Johnson has added former Lincoln caretaker boss Jamie McCombe to his backroom staff for the play-offs. McCombe will stand in for Black Cats assistant Jamie McAllister, who is serving a six-game suspension following an altercation in the tunnel during the Good Friday game with Oxford.

McAllister is banned from the stadium for both legs of Sunderland's play-off semi-final, and while he will be able to attend Wembley if the club makes the final, he will be banned from the touchline.

McCombe is well known to Johnson as he spent four years at Bristol City between 2006-10, making more than 100 league starts for the Robins. Johnson was also on Bristol City's books during that period, and the pair became good friends.

McCombe ended his playing career with Lincoln, having accepted a player-coach role at Sincil Bank in 2016. He was appointed caretaker manager when Danny Cowley left to take over at Huddersfield in September 2019, and presided over three first-team matches. He left Lincoln's coaching staff last summer, but should have a good knowledge of the club's current first-team squad.