Record signing Asamoah Gyan may have to make do with a start from the bench for Sunderland this weekend, as the Lads travel to the DW Stadium with two of our strikers returning from goalscoring performances for England during the week.

Darren Bent's first goal for England helped Fabio Capello's side to a 3-1 win in Switzerland on Tuesday night, while earlier in the afternoon, the on-loan Danny Welbeck netted a brace in the Under 21's win over Lithuania. All that, coupled with Fraizer Campbell's knee injury, means that up front we will be limited to two from three players - but the fact that Gyan has only just returned from international duty with Ghana is likely to see our £13m striker start on the bench.

Also sidelined for Sunderland, of course, will be long term injury victims Craig Gordon (broken arm) and David Meyler (knee). Michael Turner is set to be out for at least another week with his ankle injury.

This will be the first game that the Premier League will play with the new squad rules in effect - basically, for those who haven't heard, we're only allowed to pick from a pre-defined squad of up to 25, plus anyone who's under 21. So what will follow now, instead of a "probable XI" that's never accurate, is our squad list (minus the crocks), plus the kids who have some chance of being picked.

Sunderland squad (squad): Mignolet, Carson; Bardsley, Angeleri, Bramble, da Silva, Ferdinand, McCartney, Mensah, Onuoha, Richardson; Cattermole, Elmohamady, Malbranque, Reid, Riveros, Zenden; Bent, Gyan, Healy; Colback, Henderson, Welbeck.

Wigan are likely to include Charles N'Zogbia in their squad, despite almost selling the former Newcastle midfielder to Birmingham (and us) on transfer deadline day. Included in their squad also will be former Sunderland man Steve Caldwell, after he completed his move to the Latics from Burnley on deadline day.

His brother Gary is likely to miss out with a hip injury that'll keep the other former Newcastle stopper out until October, but Victor Moses could figure if he recovers from an ankle problem.

Other recent arrivals Franco di Santo and Tom Cleverley are named as part of Wigan's under-21 rule - which is why they've only got a fixed squad of 19 players - as the remainder of their squad are under age - so should Roberto Martinez have money to spend in January, he'll be able to bolster their squad without having to make any cuts to his formal squad.

Wigan (from): Kirkland, Pollitt, N'Zogbia, Boyce, S Caldwell, Watson, Thomas, Stam, Gomez, Rodallega, Diame, Figueroa, Gohouri, de Ridder, Al-Habsi, Alcaraz, McArthur, Boselli, di Santo, McCarthy, Moses, Cleverley.

RECENT RESULTS AGAINST WIGAN

Wigan 1 Sunderland 0 (November 2009), Wigan 1 Sunderland 1 (September 2008), Wigan 3 Sunderland 0 (August 2007), Wigan 1 Sunderland 0 August 2005, Wigan 0 Sunderland 1 (April 2005)