Piper back in action

Matt Piper will make his long-awaited return to competitive action tonight when he appears for SAFC reserves in their match against Wolves' reserves at the Archibalds Stadium.

Matty made only two league appearances for Sunderland this season - the home defeat to Millwall and the 2-0 away win at Preston, both in August. And since then he's had to have two operations in attempts to finally fix a troublesome knee problem.

Piper himself says he only expects to play for half of the match but is looking forward to it: "I'm really excited to be playing tonight. I've been out for over six months so I'll need to take it easy, but we'll see how it goes."

Sunderland AFC reserves:
Ingham, Scott, Dodds, Leadbitter, Clark, Collins, Piper, Black, Wanless, Kingberry, Toft, Bell, Alnwick, Huntley, Flynn, Taylor.