Sunderland will travel to Millwall without five players after head coach Regis Le Bris confirmed that Romaine Mundle and Alan Browne will be out for “six to eight weeks”.

Browne broke his leg and Mundle strained a thigh muscle. This is a severe blow for Le Bris, who will already be without the suspended trio of Jobe Bellingham, Patrick Roberrs and Trai Hume in east London.

“We have to deal with this situation a lot during the season,” Le Bris sighed. “As a coach, we would like to have the whole squad available at all times, but this will not be the case, especially in a long league season, with 46 games in the championship.” So we were prepared for that, but with suspensions and injuries it’s always unpredictable.

“But obviously we have a deep enough squad to cope with these situations. In the first part of the season we played with a core of probably 12 or 13 players. So we built up a lot of references and sometimes it was automatic. That was good for the development of the team, but now we have to replace four or five players.

“They [the replacements] have trained with us before and they are talented players. They know the context, the culture and the model of the game, but they haven’t played a lot of competitive matches with the team. So we will probably struggle with these collective behaviours, but from our point of view we still have good players on the pitch.”

He added: “Football is unpredictable and life is unpredictable, so we have to handle the situation with confidence. I trust the team, I trust the players, I trust the mentality of the team.

“We were together again as a whole group and the mentality of the team was very good. These [substitute] players have played in the championship before, although obviously not in this team or line-up. But they are ready.”

The absentees won’t change Sunderland’s approach to the game, and when asked if it would, Le Bris continued, “No, not really. We have used the international break to review our model of play. We probably have three or four layers in a number of very different phases. Now we have to tackle the first and the second to get the foundations.

“But as far as the mentality of the team is concerned, it’s still the same idea, the same identity of the team, both for the players and for the club. We want to win, we want to play fast, we want to attack fast, whenever possible, with fewer positions, but that’s not a problem for us, we want to score.

“Out of possession we want to defend together in a compact block. When it is possible to press more and be more aggressive, we do that. And protect our goal. “So the identity is still the same. But with different players in different phases and it’s still a new experience.”