Sunderland host Hull City in a critical Championship clash affecting both ends of the table.
Victory will see Sunderland move back to within three points of third-placed Burnley, whilst Hull can climb to 20th position with a win if Cardiff fail to win elsewhere.
Team News
Sunderland have no fresh injury concerns to report following their defeat at Leeds last weekend.
Ahmed Abdullahi (groin), Tommy Watson (knee/ankle), Aji Alese and Niall Huggins (both knee) remain sidelined.
Hull could welcome Fin Burns (calf) and Charlie Hughes (hamstring) back into contention.
Liam Millar, Mohamed Belloumi (both ACL), Dogukan Sinik (fitness) and Kasey Palmer (ankle) are still ruled out.
When is Kick-Off?
Sunderland host Hull at Stadium of Light on Saturday 22 February at 12:30pm GMT, live on Sky Sports Football in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Sunderland have lost one of their last 12 league meetings against Hull (W5, D6, L1).
- Hull have won one of their last five league visits to Sunderland (W1, D2, L2).
- Two of Hull’s last three trips to Sunderland ended in draws, whilst the Tigers won 1-0 on their recent visit last season.
- Trai Hume has produced assists in each of Sunderland’s last two home games (W1, D1).
- Hull have kept clean sheets in two of their last three away games (W2, L1).
Prediction
Having blew a potentially season-defining victory with two sloppy set-piece marking of Pascal Struijk’s headers in their eventual defeat to Leeds from 1-0 up, Sunderland need to use the pain of that loss as motivation to come out and show a more clinically killer end product if want to reignite their automatic promotion ambitions.
Hull meanwhile are still fighting the drop and certainly made life difficult for Norwich in a tightly-fought draw so will need to bring more of that spirit to Wearside, otherwise they will need to be at their defensive best if want anything here.
I however do think that Sunderland will deliver the right response to get back to winning ways.
Prediction: Sunderland 2-1 Hull
Result: Sunderland 0-1 Hull
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