Sunderland boss Steve Bruce admits the snow has affected his squad's training this past fortnight.

Like many managers up and down the country the snow has made it hard for Bruce to organise training on a regular basis.

"It's tough at the moment because of the weather - if I'm honest, I think we've only trained properly once in the last two and a half weeks," he said.

"Of course, we use indoor areas and gyms, but it's not ideal. We used the stadium before the game against Barrow and we'll probably look to do the same again ahead of the Bolton game this weekend, but if you take the covers off and there's another heavy snowfall we'll be in trouble.

"That's been frustrating, and it certainly hasn't helped the injury situation. The last thing you need to be doing with players with calf injuries is running in gyms.

"The one thing you need to do in this day and age is prepare properly. However, we've just got to get on with it and deal with it because we can't do anything about it."