RICKY Sbragia might be mulling over the respective merits of Danny Shittu and James Collins, but Danny Collins last night played down suggestions that Sunderland are in the midst of a defensive crisis.

With Nyron Nosworthy nursing a hamstring injury that will keep him on the sidelines for more than a month, and Paul McShane cup-tied following a loan spell at Hull, the Black Cats boast just four fit defenders ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup fourth-round tie with Blackburn.

Things would have been worse had Collins not recovered from a bout of concussion sustained against Aston Villa, but while the Welshman is fit to partner Anton Ferdinand at centre-half, with Pascal Chimbonda and Phil Bardsley filling the full-back berths, Sbragia will not be able to name a senior defender on the substitutes’ bench because of a lack of options at the back.

The Scotsman is mulling over a loan move for Shittu, and retains an interest in West Ham centre-half James Collins, but while the Hammers defender’s namesake, Danny, admits new arrivals will be welcome this month, he does not feel Sunderland’s defensive situation is approaching crisis point.

“Nyron tearing his hamstring was obviously a blow,”

said the 28-year-old, who scored his first goal of the season in last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa. “He’s going to be out for four or five weeks and that’s going to hit us quite hard.

“But it’s not all doom and gloom, because players are coming back. George (Mc- Cartney) is close to a firstteam return – he shouldn’t be too far away now – and Paul’s return will give us another option in terms of the back four.

“There have been reports about potential signings and the word is that we might be getting one or two defenders in, so that would help even more. But the players are out there, and there’ll be competition for places, even if Nyron’s missing.

“We’ve had defensive injuries all season, but I don’t think the situation should be blown out of proportion because it’s nothing we can’t deal with. We’ll definitely be able to get through this period of games.”

Saturday’s FA Cup clash with Blackburn starts a run of three games in eight days, and represents Sunderland’s fourth meeting with Rovers this season.

The current record reads one win, one draw and one defeat, with none of the matches having produced a winning margin of more than one goal.

Boxing Day’s league game at the Stadium of Light finished goalless, and contained one of the Black Cats’ best defensive displays of the campaign.

Collins played at left-back in that game, and is looking for a similarly solid performance when Rovers return to Wearside this weekend.

“We’ve been defending fairly well recently – particularly if you take the second half of Saturday’s game out of the equation – and I thought our performance in the league game against Blackburn was particularly good,” he said.

“But I think we’d accept that we haven’t kept enough clean sheets this season. Four in the league isn’t good enough, and it’s definitely something we’ll be looking to address.

“We know we need to be tighter. Maybe we’ve been jiggling things around a bit too much, but that’s not really enough of an excuse.

“We’ve had the odd injury here and there, and keeping a settled back four or back five usually helps. We haven’t been able to do that, but we should still have been keeping more clean sheets than we have done.”

■ Sunderland striker Martyn Waghorn has been named in the England Under-19 squad for a friendly against Spain on February 10.