This week's opponents: Birmingham

This weekends visitors to the Stadium of light are Birmingham City Birmingham are currently sitting in eighth position on 44 points and have five away wins to their name.

Sunderland captain Lorik Cana will miss the game as he serves the second game of his two match suspension. Striker Kenwyne Jones will undergo a late fitness test on the hip injury he picked up during Sunderland's last game against Manchester City as will midfielders Andy Reid and Lee Cattermole while Bolo Zenden is likely to miss out due to a knee injury.

On-loan midfielder from Sunderland Teemu Tainio is ineligible to play against his parent club because of Barclays Premier League rules while Stuart Parnaby has made a swift return from the ankle injury he picked up at Portsmouth and the full back may return to the squad.

Lee Carsley (ankle) and Garry O'Connor (hip) are both out injured
The last time the two sides met...

Steve Bruce: "We're not out of the woods yet but there's a quarter of the season to go - can we go and finish like we started?

"My priority is thinking who can we catch to get up there and finish as high as we can?

"Birmingham have had a wonderful season and it just shows what spirit and togetherness can do. They've been very settled and you have to hold your hands up and
say well done.

"Alex McLeish, his backroom staff and the board have operated very wisely and they're being rewarded for that."Alex McLeish: "Steve has got quality players up there and a quality right hand man in Eric Black. We won the game at St. Andrew's and we've got to go up there and
try to win this one.

"We didn't do well there in the League Cup game but I rotated the squad at that stage and we played some young players, so it wasn't a real priority that competition. But hopefully we can do ourselves better justice at Sunderland this weekend.

"It's a tough place to go and their 40,000 fans are fantastic with  the way they back their team, just as our fans have been at St. Andrew's