Sunderland boss Jack Ross has revealed that a key duo will miss a portion of pre-season, with one player likely to miss the big kick off as reported by the club's official site.

Aiden McGeady picked up a foot injury at the end of last season but played through the pain barrier to help push the Black Cats towards automatic promotion.

That endeavour proved fruitless and he's now suffering the consequences of the club's actions by missing tonight's friendly against South Shields and possibly some of their Portugal trip next week.

Max Power is likely to miss the whole of pre-season and perhaps even the opening fixture against Oxford United. He's got a 'nasty' ankle injury which looks set to keep him sidelined for three to four weeks.

"Aiden will hopefully be able to train at some point in pre-season but at the moment he is still a couple of weeks away from joining in full training,” Jack Ross confirmed.

"He'll miss Thursday and Saturday.

"Max Power will probably struggle to make the start of the season. He got quite a nasty injury actually, an ankle injury that takes quite a long time to heal."

It's not the ideal preparation for a new season and Black Cats' fans have taken to Twitter to express their frustration and what they see as a poor pre-season so far.