Sunderland will play their final game of pre-season on Friday evening against Borussia Dortmund.
David Moyes’ side remain unbeaten in their Premier League preparations, but will have to be at their best to remain that way against the German giants.
Pre-season form
Dortmund have played six games, winning four and losing two, but have done arguably some of the best business across the European leagues this summer.
The Germans have brought in Andre Schürrle, Mario Götze and Ousmane Dembele to name a few.
Manchester City were Dortmund’s most recent pre-season opponents, drawing 1-1, but they ended the game losing 6-5 on penalties to the Black Cats’ first opponents of the new campaign.
Sunderland have been in impressive form ahead of their new season, winning four and drawing last time out against Montpellier.
The Black Cats are still yet to sign a player, but have been unable to do so with the problems surrounding their manager. David Moyes will look to sign players before the close of the summer window, or ideally before August 13. The Scotsman declared in his first press conference since joining the club that he is working with the board to bring in new faces as soon as possible.
Team news
Jermain Defoe is likely to miss out on Friday’s game, but Patrick van Aanholt and Billy Jones are likely to recover from knocks to start.
Sunderland fans may begin to get an idea of the side Moyes wishes to start against Manchester City and the type of formation he may start with.
The Black Cats' youngsters have been featuring regularly in pre-season and could feature again Friday evening. Moyes has always been a big fan of youth development and demonstrated this in his time at Everton when he brought current Sunderland midfielder Jack Rodwell through into the Toffees first team at 16-years-old.
Former Sunderland transfer target Neven Subotic is set to miss the remainder of 2016 so will not feature for BVB. The Serbian was linked to the Black Cats as well as their newly promoted rivals, Middlesbrough.
Marco Reus is also likely to miss the game with the same injury that kept him out of Euro 2016. Sven Bender and Matthias Ginter are also unavailable, with the pair representing Germany at the Olympics.