Jack Ross shares exciting Aiden McGeady update as Sunderland prepare for Ipswich trip

Jack Ross revealed that Watmore, who came off the bench against Oxford United in the season opener, is likely to be ruled-out of the trip to Portman Road having also missed the pre-season friendly with Heerenveen with a slight injury.

He joins Charlie Wyke and Ethan Robson on the treatment table with the Black Cats set to be without the trio for the testing trip to East Anglia.

But Ross has revealed some more positive news on McGeady – who is edging closer to full fitness after missing much of pre-season.

The lively winger made his first-team comeback off the bench against the U’s and the Sunderland boss believes that his star man is now ‘up to speed’ after a troublesome injury kept him sidelined for much of July.

Speaking ahead of the trip to Ipswich, Ross said: “We’ve still have some missing but some are obviously edging closer to full fitness.

“Aiden has had another few weeks training so he’s pretty much back up to speed now and Max [Power] is getting closer in terms of the amount of training he’s done.

“Duncan Watmore has picked up a knock though, so he’s unavailable.

“Charlie Wyke is still unavailable, Ethan Robson is still unavailable.

“But those who missed a chunk of pre-season – Aiden, Max and Chris [Maguire] are getting up to full fitness now.”