Micah

Speaking this afternoon at his pre-Sunderland press conference, Sven-Goran Eriksson told those at Carrington Micah Richards' injury should not keep him out for too long.

The Manager said: "Micah will probably not be playing on Monday, hopefully he’ll be available the match after."

As yesterday's newspapers told a tale of despair with Micah's injury a huge blow for England, Sven added: "I don’t know where that came from. It looked bad on the pitch, but the day after he had a scan.

"There were a lot of articles after the game about him and how bad the injury was, but to be fair to our medical team and us, we never pronounced anything on Wednesday. We said always we wanted to do the scan first. So yes there was a lot of speculation about his injury and that means he’s a very important player.

"It’s not very serious an injury, but it’s an injury. It was twisted [the knee], it’s better that the doctor explains in English exactly. It’s not a ligament problem and that’s very good of course."

As we exclusively brought you yesterday, the injury was confirmed as bruising to his medial meniscus cartilage in his right knee, better news than many had predicted.

The problem Sven now has to deal with is a choice of who will replace Richards and where they will play. With Nedum Onuoha expected to get the nod, the Manager said: "Almost for sure Onuoha will come in and then it’s only to make a choice as to if he’s going to play right back or as a central defender. He’s in very good shape so it’s very good for us."

Another option is to play Vedran Corluka in the middle, something Sven has tried in the early rounds of the Carling Cup. "That has been a very good experiment and I know that both of them can do it. It’s just down to me to choose where to put them," he concluded.