Breaking: A crucial Sunderland player will miss their matches against Stoke and Middlesbrough because of an incident during training.

Patrick Roberts out of Sunderland games against Stoke & Middlesbrough

PATRICK ROBERTS has been ruled of Sunderland’s weekend game with Stoke City – and the winger is also expected to be unavailable for the Tees-Wear derby with Middlesbrough at the start of next month.

Roberts has been sidelined since suffering a calf injury in the early stages of the 1-1 draw at Rotherham United between Christmas and New Year.

He has missed Sunderland’s last four matches, and will not be involved when Stoke visit the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

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It is hoped he will be able to return to training in the back end of next week, but that would still make unlikely to feature against Middlesbrough at the Riverside in ten days’ time.

Sunderland head coach Michael Beale has ruled out the possibility of any other injured players returning for the Stoke game.

Beale said: “There’s no change with the injury situation. We’re hoping that Pat will be back training at the back end of next week or the start of the week after.

“He’s still going to miss the next couple of games though, unfortunately.”