SUNDERLAND embark on the first leg of a southern road trip this evening, with Tony Mowbray expecting to ‘learn a lot more’ about his new squad over the course of the next four days.

Having lost at Middlesbrough in their final game prior to the footballing shutdown in the wake of the death of the Queen, the Black Cats find themselves in the midst of a run of three successive away games that will see them take on Reading at the Madejski Stadium tonight before heading to Vicarage Road to face Watford on Saturday.

The Black Cats will be remaining in the south between the two games, with Mowbray keen to use the impromptu training camp as an opportunity to bond with his new players and learn more about what makes them tick off the pitch.

On the field, having slipped to defeat at the Riverside, the Sunderland boss accepts his side are heading in two more extremely difficult away games, with Reading starting this week’s round of fixtures in third position after an unexpectedly strong start to the season and Watford just three places below them in sixth.

“It’s a tough run of games,” said Mowbray, who continues to be without the injured Dennis Cirkin and Ross Stewart. “If you put the fixtures in perspective, then I think Middlesbrough and Watford would have been up there in everybody’s favourites to be in the top six at the start of the season. Reading wouldn’t have been there, yet they’re right up there in the top third at the moment.

“In the context of the way the fixtures fall, you probably couldn’t get a tougher run of three consecutive away games, yet there they are for us. We’ll certainly know a lot more about ourselves on the back of these games.

“They’re a test, although we certainly shouldn’t fear them. We’ve already been to Stoke City and Bristol City and won this season, so the away fixtures shouldn’t be too daunting. We’ve just got to go and do what the team does – express our talent, get our quality footballers on the ball and go and ask questions of the opposition.”

Mowbray could have opted to return to the North-East this evening before travelling back down south on Friday, but having only been appointed as Alex Neil’s successor last month, the Sunderland boss would rather keep travelling time to a minimum and maximise his opportunity to get to know his new squad.

“We’re planning to go to Reading, and then stay down south and train down south for a couple of days,” he explained. “It didn’t really make sense to travel all the way back, have one day here, then travel all the way back down south.

“We’ll eat together, we’ll go for walks together and we’re going to train two or three times down there too. I’ll be encouraging us to spend time together – I don’t just want them disappearing to their own room to play on their screens.

“There’ll be a game on the TV on the Thursday night – it’ll be the Europa League I’d imagine – and we will all watch that together and talk about football and the match. It’ll be nice to be able to relax, watch football together and just chat.”

Edouard Michut will be part of the group that remains down south, although the summer signing from Paris St Germain is not expected to be available for selection until after the international break as he continues to acclimatise to the demands of life in the Championship.

“He's trained with us this week but we're still protecting him a little bit, he doesn't necessarily do all of the sessions,” said Mowbray. “I think the intensity of the training here has been higher than what he had recently, and so I think the first few days for him were hard and he had to be protected a bit.

“He was feeling it a bit and had a little setback, and we want to build him up bit by bit so he doesn't pull a hamstring or anything like that.

“He's probably a week or two away from being in contention, possibly after the international break he could be. He's coming with us for this trip so that he can do all the training and keep integrating into the group.”

Sunderland (probable, 3-4-2-1): Patterson; O’Nien, Batth, Wright; Gooch, Evans, Neil, Clarke; Pritchard, Roberts; Simms.