Bruce is steeled to hold on to key men

Aug 28 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

The exact number of incoming players will depend on how many of his senior men that he decides to let go.

“It’s inevitable that there will be some comings and goings, that’s for sure, but how many, we will wait and see,” Bruce said.

“There are five days to go – I didn’t envisage that I would be so busy, but we have had offers for Grant and Carlos from Ipswich, which we have accepted.

“But the one thing I am not going to do is leave the squad short. We have got one or two irons in the fire as well, but as always I am reluctant to talk about individuals. It is a bit disrespectful to the opposing teams.

“We have to evaluate who we let out and how many we decide to let out. There have been several inquiries for our players and we have said no chance – we wouldn’t want to sell them.”

One of them is understood to be Jones, who Stoke looked at before opting for Turkey international Tunçay. Bruce stressed that the Trinidad & Tobago international is part of his first team plans.

“I have worked so hard to get Bent in and Campbell and Kieran Richardson off the front. Two of them on two goals each. The last thing I will do is disrupt that.”

Meanwhile, Niall Quinn has revealed that a ‘pep talk’ with Andy Reid helped inspire the midfielder to shed nearly nine kilos of weight over the summer.

Sunderland’s chairman said that he thought Reid was a different person when he turned up for pre-season training.

“Basically for Andy it was “do you want to be remembered as a guy involved in two relegations and was a nearly man who people said had all this great skill but didn’t materialise?

“Or do you want to have a great seven or eight years in your career? He took it (the advice) by the scruff of the neck. People will look at his two goals (against Norwich) but I looked at his covering of the ground.

“He covered every inch of grass the other night.”