Chris Casper is relishing the visit of Championship side Sunderland - despite possibly being without four first-choice players.

The Bury boss has a quartet of injury concerns going into tonight's Carling Cup first-round clash at Gigg Lane. Defender Dave Challinor and midfielder Marc Pugh both picked up knee injuries in training last week, while Dwayne Mattis and Marc Goodfellow (both ankle) are also unlikely to figure.

Both sides have lost their opening four league games, but Casper is backing the Shakers to put their disappointing start behind them against the Black Cats.

"It's my first big challenge as a manager, playing in the cup against a team from a higher division," said the Shakers manager, who labelled his side pathetic after they lost 3-0 at Wycombe on Saturday.

"I'm looking to really challenging myself and seeing where we're up to. We can use this as a building block to move on from.

"Sunderland is a massive club, the size, the history and the support demands they're successful. They've had a slow start to the season but I'm sure they'll turn it around and I hope they do because you want to see big clubs, with that kind of fantastic support, doing well.

"But hopefully they'll do that after the game and we're not the ones to kick-start their season."

Bury striker Matthew Tipton hopes to make his first start of the season after recovering from a groin problem.

Sunderland also have injury concerns going into the game with defender Stephen Wright likely to miss out. The former Liverpool trainee picked up a calf strain during Saturday's humiliating 3-1 defeat at Southend and is rated doubtful.

Fellow defender Nyron Nosworthy, Clive Clarke and Steve Caldwell are set to be sidelined again as the Black Cats seek to avoid a fifth straight defeat.