Sunderland are pressing ahead with their attempts to sign Aston Villa’s Ross McCormack.
According to the Northern Echo, Sunderland will spend the coming hours attempting to agree a deal with Aston Villa for the signature of striker Ross McCormack.
The Black Cats have added four new signings under recently-appointed manager Simon Grayson, with Tyias Browning, Brendan Galloway, Aiden McGeady and James Vaughan all arriving in recent weeks.
Simon Grayson
However, with Sunderland looking to bounce back from relegation to the Premier League, Grayson may still need more new signings – and having worked with Browning, McGeady and Vaughan at former clubs, he may just pull off a similar signing.
The Northern Echo report that Grayson’s prime target is Aston Villa forward Ross McCormack, and the Black Cats will spend the coming hours attempting to strike an agreement for the Scot.
McCormack, 30, joined Villa from Fulham last summer, but endured a dismal campaign with just three goals and one assist in 20 league games, before being loaned out to Nottingham Forest in January.
Having been left out of Villa’s pre-season squad for their trip to Germany, McCormack is expected to leave Villa Park this summer – and a reunion with his former Leeds boss Grayson could be ideal.
Aston Villa’s Ross McCormack
Grayson signed McCormack for Leeds in the summer of 2010, and he smashed 14 goals under the now-Sunderland boss during the 2011-12 season, before Grayson was sacked. Now, over five years on, the duo could reunite at the Stadium of Light.
It’s believed that Sunderland chief executive Martin Bain will be pressing ahead with negotiations this week in a bid to tie up McCormack’s signature, but Sunderland don’t want to pay more than £4million to sign him permanently, and may not even be able to afford a huge chunk of his wages in a loan deal, meaning some work is still needed on this deal.
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