SUNDERLAND are coping with a number of Covid cases in the squad ahead of this weekend’s game against Wycombe Wanderers with manager Lee Johnson admitting the virus is ‘closing in’ on them.

Defender Frederik Alves has been one of the named players that has contracted the virus while a number of other players have also tested positive.

The Black Cats will go through more rounds of testing before Saturday’s game with the final tests to be completed on Friday which will confirm the numbers that Johnson has at his disposal for this weekend.

Johnson said: “It feels like it’s closing in on us a little bit. We have got a few, I won’t lie to you so we’ve got to see exactly what we can do to churn it around going into Saturday.”

Having had a number of players ruled out for the game already, the club are hopeful of welcoming back Carl Winchester.

The Northern Irishman has missed the last two games after picking up a training ground injury. There wasn’t any fears that Winchester would be out for a considerable length of time but the club approached the side of caution by not using him for the 5-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday.

When asked whether Winchester will be available for the game at Wycombe Wanderers, Johnson responded: “Hopefully. We tried to leave him with as much time as possible to be able to heal the injury but I think Winny is a really good healer as well.

“Funnily enough he’s probably the best healer I’ve ever worked with. I’m not sure whether he puts in a little water from Lourdes in his bath or whatever. He always seems to recover very quickly.”

This weekend’s game is a vital one for Sunderland in their chase for promotion from League One. Wycombe Wanderers sit four points and two places below them in the table in fourth place.