West Brom's "massive challenge" at Sunderland without star ever-present

Furlong has featured, almost entirely as a starter, in all 95 of Corberan's league fixtures in charge and developed his reputation as one of the Championship's most consistent performers in that position.

The former QPR man collected his fifth yellow card of the season, however, against Norwich on Saturday and will serve a one-match ban with Albion in action in the north east tonight.

The suspension has left Corberan with a real quandary with options in the backline already limited given injuries to three central defenders - albeit Kyle Bartley is pushing for a return having trained over the weekend.

"It is a massive challenge for us," Corberan said. "(Mason) Holgate is the cover right-back, let's say, or the player that can play right-back, but he is playing as a centre-back because we lost three centre-backs.

"It makes a challenge and a situation we need to fix and solve."

On-loan Everton defender Holgate has been Corberan's most natural right-back cover option this season, though Furlong recently won praise from the head coach as the best right-back Corberan had ever worked with to stay ahead of competition in the squad.

Holgate has been required in the heart of defence of late due to injuries to Bartley (knee), Semi Ajayi and Paddy McNair (both hamstring).

The experienced Bartley, a regular under Corberan, returned to training at the back end of last week having missed more than a month following a minor knee operation.

Corberan, speaking in the wake of his side's 2-2 draw at home to the Canaries, was unsure whether Bartley would be ready for a return at the Stadium of Light, having previously pencilled a more realistic comeback date of this coming Saturday at Preston.

"If he trained on Sunday then let's see how he feels after that to compete," added the head coach. "It is something that I don't know right now.

"If you ask me what I expect, I will tell you 50-50, 30-70, but until he finishes the training it is impossible to know."

The head coach otherwise has a variety of potential options to fill in for Furlong having previously explained that the versatile Callum Styles, currently playing at left-back, and centre-back Torbjorn Heggem can fill in on the right of defence.

Corberan may also look to tweak his defensive shape to incorporate wing-backs, or drop a more attack-minded winger into the right-back berth.