Stewart Donald pushing for three new signings by weekend as he targets triple striker swoop

Sunderland owner Stewart Donald is pushing the club's transfer chiefs to make three signings before Saturday's game against St Mirren.
Mo EisaMo Eisa
Mo Eisa

The Black Cats have added six new faces to their squad this summer as Jack Ross continues a huge rebuild of the first team.

Read More
Live transfer updates as Sunderland chase new signings
Mo EisaMo Eisa
Mo Eisa

But with just two pre-season games remaining - on Saturday against St Mirren and next Friday at Middlesbrough - before the League One season-opener against Charlton Athletic on August 4, Donald admits he wants the rest of the signings in place quickly.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sunderland are in clear need of strikers and centre-halves. They have seen a £1million-plus bid for exciting forward Mo Eisa rejected by Cheltenham, while a £600,000 bid for Bradford City frontman Charlie Wyke remains on the table.

A deal for Reading midfielder George Evans should go through once personal terms have been agreed and the player returns from the Royals' pre-season trip to Austria.

That will provide an extra body for Ross, but Donald wants more signings in place quickly so they can hit the ground running once the League One season starts - and he says ideally, he'd like to sign three strikers.

He said: "I'm looking at three strikers, at least one midfielder and two centre halves. Everyone else is two, one and two and I'm three, one and two, so I imagine it will be somewhere between that.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"I've said I'd like three in for Saturday and three in for net week as you want to start getting them into the team as when you play Charlton you may have decent players but they won't have played together and you want to hit the ground running.

"But I appreciate for Jack it's a jigsaw. It's players out, players in and managing that. There's talk that we can't spend any fees until we get players out - well, we can, but we've got to be sensible.

"If we sign eight players and don't get rid of any it puts us above what the EFL will say we should be spending. It's a balancing act."

Donald was speaking on the Roker Rapport podcast, which can be found here.