Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce targets TRIPLE transfer swoop

Sunderland have brought in two fresh faces so far this month, with defender Jan Kirchhoff arriving in a £750,000 move from Bayern Munich and striker Dame N’Doye joining on loan from Trabzonspor until the end of the season.

But the Black Cats have created some room on the wage bill this week after offloading Costel Pantilimon to Watford and Danny Graham in a loan move to Blackburn.

Allardyce is keen to reinvest those funds by bringing in another defender, a forward and a third-choice goalkeeper to act as back-up to Vito Mannone and Jordan Pickford.

The Sunderland boss said: “We’ve already got two in and we are obviously pushing for two more outfield players if we can.

“Now Costel has gone, I think I need to find a third goalkeeper as well, which I don’t think will be a problem.

“Before the window, we started on doing some business with outgoings.

“Costel has gone on a permanent basis and Danny has gone on loan until the end of the season, which is effectively until the end of his contract.

“That does clear up wages for new players, which is very important with the Financial Fair Play today.”

Sunderland continue their pursuit of Swansea forward Andre Ayew, even though the Welsh club have made it clear that they do not want to sell the Ghana international.

But Allardyce insists that Sunderland are not narrowing their transfer hunt to just a handful of players, particularly with several January targets wary of moving to the Stadium of Light with the Black Cats’ Premier League status so uncertain.

“We’re looking at several players, but it’s been very difficult to acquire anyone in January, particularly when the club is in this position,” added Allardyce.

“They’ve got to be able to come in and join the fight and want to join the fight.

“Some of the players turnaround and say they don’t want to take that risk. They want to come to Sunderland, but say ‘ring me next summer if you’re safe’.

“We have to move on and go onto the next one then.

“If there are no more at the end of the window, that will be because there’s not enough quality to bring in, so we’ll go with what we’ve got.”