TONY MOWBRAY is confident Patrick Roberts will be available sooner rather than later after allowing him to “have a breather” against Burnley.

Roberts has looked sharp in recent weeks for the Black Cats but was left out of Saturday’s match-day squad that lost 4-2 at home to Burnley – raising fears he had suffered an injury blow.

But Mowbray insists the slight knock the former Manchester City forward is carrying is not something to be too concerned about ahead of back-to-back trips to Luton and Huddersfield.

Mowbray said: “We don't think it's a serious problem. We'll see how the week goes, he's had a huge workload of late.

“He probably hasn't played many three-game weeks, he's picked up a knock in training and was uncomfortable.

“The decision was that we didn't think it was worth losing him potentially for eight to ten weeks. We decided to give him a breather this week and give someone else an opportunity.”

Roberts has been enjoying something of a revival this season, turning in a number of positive performances and scored twice at Reading last month.

The 25-year-old is keen to avoid a repeat of previous years when he has struggled to get going for one reason or another; just last season he had played just 13 minutes for Troyes before moving from City to Sunderland in January.

He has always been regarded as a player with enormous potential after a blistering start to his career which seen Manchester City sign him from Fulham.

He had a fantastic trophy-laden spell at Celtic on loan but then had a couple of serious hamstring problems that restricted his development.

Sunderland are in need of as many attacking options as they can get given their current shortage of strikers.

Winger Jack Clarke had to lead the line against Burnley in the continued absence of Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms.

Sunderland still managed to pose a threat to a side fancied for promotion to the Premier League, gaining a two-goal advantage at half-time only to concede four after the restart.

Mowbray said: “I could still feel City’s threat first half. They have good players. My message at half-time was ‘I can see Burnley have quality players’ we had to be aware of that.

“It is done now. Let’s move on. We are all frustrated and disappointed. Hugely disappointed for the 40,000 fans today. We are doing everything we can and I would like them to know we will be looking to reproduce the spells we had in this game again.”