HAVING telephoned Ricky Sbragia earlier this week to dismiss talk of Alan Curbishley joining Sunderland, Niall Quinn last night insisted he would not be making any backroom appointments between now and the end of the season.

A series of reports emerged at the start of the week linking Curbishley, who is due to appear in court today in relation to an ongoing compensation claim against his former employers, West Ham, with a managerial fire-fighting role at the Stadium of Light.

Senior club sources were quick to pour scorn on the idea, but Quinn still felt the need to make a personal telephone call to Sbragia to assure him there were no plans to appoint a replacement.

And despite the Black Cats being just two points clear of the drop zone ahead of tomorrow’s home game with Hull, the Irishman repeated his pledge in public last night.

“We are 100 per cent behind Ricky,” said Quinn. “I said it when Roy Keane was around – I am like a team-mate. It’s a partnership between myself and Ricky. We are trying to help Ricky and he’s doing a superb job.

“You must remember that he had no players to sign in the transfer market. He took over on the eve of the window so he had no scouting done and he got a couple of loan players in.

“He hasn’t had that much of a grasp of being manager in terms of doing it his way, and we’ve asked him to do a very difficult job.

“The great thing for me would be for us to stay up, sit down and have a review for a few days away from Sunderland, and then plan for something really big next year.

“But there is absolutely no truth that we are looking at anybody else. It’s Ricky Sbragia’s job – he’s our manager.”

Sbragia, who speaks to his chairman regularly, is relaxed about the constant speculation surrounding his position.

And with tomorrow’s relegation clash with Hull representing arguably Sunderland’s biggest game of the season, the former centre-half insists talk of a change of manager has not caused his focus to waver.

“It's a media speculation,” said the Black Cats boss, who was still in temporary charge when Sunderland beat Hull 4-1 at the KC Stadium in December. “I speak to Niall daily, sometimes twice a day, and he’s always been honest with me.

“I trust Niall, work really hard with him, and he dismissed it. He rang me up and I said, ‘Don’t bother – the last thing on my mind is Alan Curbishley’.

He said, ‘It’s a load of crap’. We’ve got to focus on winning against Hull and moving up the table, and that’s what I’ve been doing.

“I can’t affect the speculation, but I don’t get upset or have sleepless nights about it.

“They’ll (the board) make the decision and I think I’d be the first to know before anything happens. I’d trust him (Quinn) to do that, but there’s no plans for that at present - we’re planning ahead and looking forward to next year.

It’s just speculation, but people can write what they want – I’m still manager of Sunderland FC.”

Nevertheless, even the club’s staff have felt the need to protect Sbragia from the raft of headlines questioning his position.

Earlier in the week, the Scotsman entered Sunderland’s IT suite, only for one of the technicians to minimise an internet report he was reading on screen.

It turned out to be one of a number of stories linking Curbishley with the Stadium of Light.

“I saw it on the computer,”

said the Scotsman. “The IT bod brought it down on the screen, but I saw something about Sunderland so I said, ‘What did that say?’ “He lifted it up and it said Alan Curbishley, so I said, ‘Don’t bloody bother about that’. He wasn’t wanting to show me – he wanted to hide it – but I honestly don’t have a problem with any of it.

“I don’t know whether any manger in the Premier League would be safe in their jobs – the majority are living day-by-day. But you’ve got to plan ahead.”

That planning no doubt involves the future of Kenwyne Jones and Djibril Cisse, both of whom have been linked with moves away from the Stadium of Light this week.

Despite signing a new longterm deal in January, Jones is expected to be a summer target for Tottenham, while Cisse, whose current loan deal expires next month, has been interesting Portsmouth and Panathinaikos.

“Good players are always wanted by clubs, and we can’t do anything about that,” said Sbragia. “But Kenwyne’s committed to the club and that’s the reason we got him a contract – he didn’t want to go to Spurs.

“Djibril is a Sunderland player, end of story. His situation is ongoing, but it keeps bobbing up at times that aren’t convenient.

“We just need to concentrate on making sure they play like they did against Man United. If they do that, they will score goals.”

Sunderland will be without calf victim George McCartney tomorrow, but Sbragia hopes to have both Nyron Nosworthy and Kieran Richardson available.

■ Sunderland’s home game with Everton will now take place on Sunday, May 3 (4pm).