TONY MOWBRAY has admitted he was left frustrated when a number of his younger players were forced to miss a fortnight of training with Sunderland earlier this month, only to then be left out of their respective international teams.

Mowbray’s preparations for last weekend’s defeat at Stoke City were badly hampered by the late return of a number of his players that had been on international duty with their country.

Nazariy Rusyn barely had any training time on Wearside ahead of the trip to the bet365 Stadium after a two-week stint with Ukraine, yet the striker was not selected in the squad for Ukraine’s opening game of the international break against North Macedonia and was an unused substitute for their second match, a 3-1 win in Malta.

Having been playing catch-up in terms of his match sharpness anyway after a visa issue dragged out his move to Sunderland from Zorya Luhansk, Rusyn is likely to be even further behind his club colleagues now.

Mason Burstow was another player who was unable to train properly ahead of the Stoke game, having been a second-half substitute as England Under-20s lost to Portugal. Again, Burstow might well have benefited from a two-week block of training with his new Sunderland team-mates rather than a stint away with England’s juniors.

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Mowbray accepts he is unable to do anything about the situation, and would not deprive any of his players of the opportunity to represent their country. Nevertheless, with young players in particular, he would like the authorities to think about what is best for a player’s long-term development when they are looking to break through at club level.

“You haven’t got a choice with natural federations, unfortunately,” said Mowbray. “You can’t say, ‘Look, we’re going to keep him because we think that will be much better for his development’. They want them to play, even though they didn’t necessarily play, which is then the big frustration.

“You ask a footballer, and they want to go away when their country calls. I understand that. It’s very difficult to say to a young lad, ‘Listen, you stay here and do loads of extra training because it’ll be good for you in the long run’.

“Is it frustrating? Yes. But I never want to deny a player getting a cap or a call-up for his country. It’s very difficult, but we just have to accept it and make the best of it that we can.”