Sbragia keen to extend contract
Mar 3 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal
As well as recruiting players, Sbragia will look to bring in another experienced coach over the summer.
Former boss Reid, who was at the Reebok to take in Bolton’s game with Newcastle, was linked with a return to the Stadium of Light in a director of football role over the weekend – but Sbragia laughed off that suggestion.
“I spoke to Niall last week about it and we'll just leave everything to the summer, no name's been identified to help out with the coaching,” he said.
“Peter Reid? The papers have seen Reidy looking well on the TV and maybe jumped to conclusions, but no one's been identified.
“Quinny's probably the director of football because he deals with that but, yes, we'll look at bringing someone in on the coaching side in the summer.”
Sbragia has dismissed talk that Sunderland are safe – saying the club need nine points to secure their top-flight status – and believes they have a chance of getting some-thing from Liverpool.
Sbragia hopes to have Kenwyne Jones available after the striker returned to training over the weekend, but he will continue to treat him with kid gloves.
“We're working him a bit less than the others because he's been out so long. He's come back and done terrific but he's got a lot of knocks,” he said.
“He wants to carry on so sometimes we have to cut the minutes in training. We can see it's enough for him because he still has to do rehab on his knee.
“We'll take him out of training early and have him doing 50% of the physical work.
“We want him to play every game so we have to sacrifice the training because of it. He's not happy when he's not involved but he sees the bigger picture a lot of players don't.
“We want him to play every game left this season but he probably couldn't manage that with full training.”
Meanwhile, Anthony Stokes and Darren Ward have left Sunderland in loan switches until the end of the season.
Stokes has departed for Crystal Palace while Ward has joined former Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy at Wolves.
