WITH the obvious exception of John Mensah, Sunderland’s problem this season has not been signing crocks – it has been developing their own.

Steve Bruce bristles at the suggestion he has pushed players out before they are fully fit, but acknowledges something needs to change next season.

Craig Gordon, Michael Turner, Titus Bramble, Lee Cattermole, Danny Welbeck, David Meyler and, most seriously, Fraizer Campbell have suffered more than one serious injury this season (Meyler’s original problem came in the previous campaign, but the point stands).

Maybe it is bad luck. Maybe, as Bruce suggests, it is “something in the water”. But it is unlikely.

The Black Cats boss has already promised a full-scale investigation. So frustrated has he been at the number of injuries, few stones are likely to remain unturned.

One thing which might help.

Just a quick glance at the back of Sunderland’s programmes is instructive. Down the white stripe runs the Black Cats’ first-team squad, in the black is the opposition’s. It is almost always the longer of the two, sometimes by a distance.

Bruce has always tried to operate with a tight squad. Not for him the huge numbers of disgruntled footballers Roy Keane accumulated, some of whom the club are still desperately hawking around.

Having learned his trade in the lower leagues, and kicked off his top-flight career at shoestring clubs like Birmingham City and Wigan Athletic, small squads were pretty much the only option open to Bruce. He worked with them, worked well with them, and joined Sunderland.

There is a but, however. Bruce’s teams have a habit of running out of puff. Their trajectories almost always follow the course Blackpool’s season has taken, rather than Liverpool’s.

At Wigan and Birmingham 17th represented success, because they would be back at the top table next season.

Sunderland’s expectations are higher – unrealistically the historians might argue, but justifiably if you look at the amount of money spent under Niall Quinn’s chairmanship.

What Bruce could have done with in the second half of the season was more players – to freshen the team, to rest aching bodies.

Football has become a squad game and Bruce’s has not been fit for purpose.

It is doubtful any number of extra bodies could have allowed the Wearsiders to meet the expectations raised in the first half of the season.

But it might have ensured the fall was a little less dramatic.