Cottagers boss Roy Hodgson sees the Nigerian international as the final piece in the jigsaw at Craven Cottage, where the summer has been spent rebuilding.

Hodgson wants a holding midfielder to deputise whenever 32-year-old Danny Murphy is unavailable to the side.

And the 26-year-old, who is competing for a place in a now-crowded Sunderland midfield, fits the bill for the Londoners.

Fulham had been interested in signing Dean Whitehead in the wake of a spate of new arrivals at the Stadium of Light.

But Sunderland have no desire to sell their skipper, and Fulham switched their sights to Etuhu.

Midfield has gone from being an area of modest competition at Sunderland to being the area with the most intense pressure for places.

Teemu Tainio, Steed Malbranque and El-Hadji Diouf's arrival, alongside fellow midfielders Dean Whitehead, Andy Reid, Kieran Richardson, Grant Leadbitter and Dwight Yorke, has severely limited Etuhu's first-team hopes.

And now Fulham are pushing ahead with efforts to sign Etuhu before the window closes.

The Londoners hope to get him for around the £1.5m Sunderland paid Norwich City for his services last summer.

For a while it looked as though the move might go ahead as part of the transfer which took David Healy to the Stadium of Light last week.

It failed to come off, but Fulham have maintained their interest, and unconfirmed claims suggest that the midfielder is due to undergo a medical in West London with a view to tying up a deal over the weekend.