As the club prepared to launch its search for Ricky Sbragia's replacement, preparations were already being made to reshape the playing staff.

The Black Cats confirmed what had been apparent for some time yesterday when they announced they would not be taking up the chance to make Djibril Cisse's season-long loan move from Marseille permanent.

In addition, the likes of Dwight Yorke, David Connolly and Arnau Riera are out of contract and will leave the club, while Michael Chopra's loan move to Cardiff will formally become a permanent £4million transfer once the summer window opens.

But whoever is appointed to head a fresh drive to establish Sunderland in the Barclays Premier League will inherit a squad with decisions to make.

At one point, former boss Roy Keane had a dozen men out on loan, many of them his signings, and several returned to Wearside at the end of the campaign.

Greg Halford, who was a Coca-Cola Championship play-off final loser with Sheffield United, has two years left on his contract, while the injury-plagued Russell Anderson, Roy O'Donovan and Anthony Stokes have one each.

Chairman Niall Quinn has insisted there is little time pressure as he looks for a third manager since his own brief spell in charge, but whoever comes in is likely to want to move players on to make way for his own signings with Ellis Short ready to fund another spending spree.

The American businessman is expected to confirm later this week that he has completed a buy-out of the Drumaville consortium and then release the purse strings, as he did last summer to pay for the likes of Anton Ferdinand, Steed Malbranque, Teemu Tainio, George McCartney, Pascal Chimbonda, El-Hadji Diouf and David Healy.

Meanwhile, bookmakers have installed Wigan boss Steve Bruce as the early favourite to succeed Sbragia with Gordon Strachan, who stood from from his post at Celtic yesterday, hard on his heels.

However, the Black Cats have as yet not identified their main targets and will cast their net wide as they attempt to find the right man for the job.