Sbragia is to thank for signing of Darren Bent

Jun 20 2010 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

NIALL QUINN has revealed that Ricky Sbragia’s short stint in charge at Sunderland the season before last gave the Black Cats a £16m cash boost – and laid the groundwork for bringing record buy Darren Bent to Wearside.

Coach Sbragia was appointed caretaker boss following Roy Keane’s departure in November 2008 and, despite later being given the job full-time, he stepped down within hours of guiding the club to Premier League safety on the last day of 2008-09 season.

Chairman Quinn has long felt that Sbragia’s contribution was underplayed at the time, and he has now spelled out just how important that six-month period was.

Sbragia’s stint spanned the January transfer window when Sunderland shipped out high-earning misfits El-Hadji Diouf and Pascal Chimbonda – who had only joined the club five months earlier – while Graham Kavanagh and Ross Wallace also moved on.

Those sales recouped £8.5m in transfer fees and cutting short those contracts saved a similar figure in wages.

That money was then available to Sbragia’s successor Steve Bruce and he used it to bring in Bent, who will end up costing around £14m by the time all the add-ons to his original £10m transfer fee are taken into account.