Sunderland to splash the cash

The Black Cats chairman Niall Quinn has confirmed that Sbragia will have funding available.

Quinn said: “We have the nucleus of a good Premier League squad and the additions we make from here will be high quality ones.

“We don’t need to change the team all about and Ricky is working to put together a list.

“We have had a lot of players here in the last two or three years.

“To go on the journey we have, we have had three teams. We bought a team to get up, we then bought a team to stay up and this year we bought a team to kick on.

“Now we just need to add a bit of quality to get the team up a notch or two.

“We will try to do it and we have the funds to do it, which is great because Sunderland in the past might have had to stop at this point.

“This time, we will be active.

“Ricky is spending time looking at his targets and going to see them — so we will feel secure about buying the finished article.”