Phil Parkinson has reassured Dylan McGeouch that he remains part of his plans - despite the midfielder playing no part in the new manager's first four games in charge.
Scotland international McGeouch was not part of the squad for Parkinson's first game at Wycombe Wanderers, and he has been an unused substitute in the three games since.
The most recent of those games was the Black Cats' Carabao Cup exit at Oxford United when Parkinson made five changes but still decided against starting McGeouch, and he revealed that he spoke to the 26-year-old former Celtic and Hibernian man beforehand.
"I had a good chat with him before the Tuesday game because he was disappointed that we had made changes and he still didn't make the team," said Parkinson .
"However, we have got a lot of midfield players and there's a lot of competition and some good players in that department.
"Dylan will get an opportunity to show us what he can do.
"Not by any stretch of the imagination am I ruling him out of our plans going forward, but I have to pick each team as I see fit and at the moment he hasn't made the starting XI."
Parkinson has barely had time to catch breath since taking over, with Sunderland's schedule featuring games Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday, and that pattern continues today against Southend United and into next week with the EFL Trophy game against Leicester City U21 on Tuesday night, Gillingham in the FA Cup next Saturday, and then Scunthorpe in the EFL Trophy the following Tuesday.
It has meant that the new boss has had little opportunity to work with the players on the training ground, but by the end of this sequence of fixtures Parkinson will have seen most of the players he has inherited in action - including, at some stage, McGeouch.
Parkinson said: "We want to get to that first free week [with no midweek game] where we can review everything, because I knew when I was coming in that there were a lot of games coming up.
"Equally, it's a good chance to look at everybody and I agreed with the owner that we would have this period where we would look at all the players - the U23s as well - and assess things to take an overall view of what we've got."
