Sunderland's McShane Is Injured

Breaking news, if you'll excuse the pun. This from VitalFootball:

"Sunderland defender Paul McShane is likely to be out for the start of the season after injuring his knee while on holiday.

The Ireland international has cut his holiday short to have an operation on his knee.
Sunderland`s club doctor Glenn Rae told safc.com "It was a very complex fracture but we managed to get Paul back with us straight away so he could get the best possible attention."

"The operation was a success and Paul will now undergo intensive rehabilitation during the course of the pre-season, and we`re hopeful he`ll be able to return to action by the start of the new season".

10 percent of teams registered in EPL FF have McShane in their squad, and (at the time of writing) he is the second-favorite sub £5.0 defender. His injury will see a lot of benches not contributing much.

Everyone loves a quality cheap defender, but it looks like McShane might be a risk for now. Popular replacement £4.0m defenders include Bolton's Meite (who is unhappy & looking to go to Hull or West Brom) & Fulham's Baird (also rumoured to be changing clubs), but better £4.0m bets would include Mendy, Brown or Rickets at Hull, who have a much easier fixture list in the opening rounds.