Stoke City: Narcis Pelach reveals update on Stevens, Lawal and Gallagher situations ahead of Sunderland | OneFootball

The Potters have a few fitness concerns heading into the early kick-off.

Stoke City boss Narcis Pelach has provided updates on the fitness of Bosun Lawal, Enda Stevens and Sam Gallagher ahead of this weekend's game against Sunderland.

There are an odd number of parallels between the two teams heading into the game on Saturday. Both of them tasted defeat for the first time in a while in the league last weekend against promotion-hopeful opponents.

Stoke have had their fair share of draws of late, like the Black Cats, but this represents an improvement on what had come before it, which isn't the case for Regis Le Bris and his players.

As much as City's form may be getting slightly better while their weekend's opponents may be worsening, they are going to be similarly hampered by injuries, as the Black Cats are, heading into the match.

Narcis Pelach provides Stoke City fitness update ahead of Sunderland game

Stevens is unlikely to feature for the Potters this weekend, according to the manager. He was forced to withdraw from Stoke's match against Preston around a week ago in the 68th minute due to a calf issue.

On the chances of the Irish full-back playing, Pelach said, via the Stoke Sentinel: "We’ll see. He’s a big doubt for Sunderland. We expected him to be available (against Burnley) but the scan we received meant we have had to wait and we’ll have to assess him again on Monday. Then we’ll know."

There is more hope that Stoke will have some players returning to fitness too, with Gallagher and Lawal next up on that list. They are both expected to step up their intensity levels in training over the week, but a spot in the squad against Sunderland seems out of the question.

The striker has only played a few times in the league for City since making the switch from Blackburn Rovers as part of a £1.5 million deal in the summer. Lawal also arrived in the last window, but is yet to make his competitive debut for the club after a lower back stress fracture was picked up not long after joining from Celtic.

"Sam and Bosun are close and they will be training with the team this week," Pelach revealed."It’s not full training, it will be modified a little bit, but they’ll be training with the team, which is very positive.

"In Bosun Lawal’s case, he has to make the step into the Championship and he missed a lot of pre-season so he can be training but we can’t force him to play games too early because then he’ll be vulnerable and we don’t want. We have to build him up and make sure that when we play him, he’s ready for this intensity, which is big and, for him, is new.

"Sam is different because he knows the league and he’s played games this season already. We just need to be careful when is the right moment to introduce him to make sure we don’t get another one."

Stoke might have hit a good time to play Sunderland

Because of injuries and suspensions, the initial momentum that City's opponents on Saturday had has now tapered off. They haven't won since October; Stoke have only lost once since then, as have Sunderland, in fairness.

Despite the Burnley defeat, Pelach has certainly made this team a much tougher one to beat. Le Bris' side aren't scoring at the free-flowing rate they once were, and the Potters could capitalise on this.

If they keep things tight, opportunities could open up for their forward players to hurt Sunderland's backline and possibly get a result at the Stadium of Light.