WITH Greg Halford ready to finally end two years of misery on Wearside, chairman Niall Quinn has reassured the rest of the Sunderland squad that they will be given a chance to impress during preseason.

Steve Bruce, installed as the club’s manager last month, will be back in the North-East next week ahead of his first day of training with the squad he has inherited on Wednesday.

And while the likes of Halford, close to a £2m switch to Wolves 24 months after Roy Keane paid £3m for him, and striker Michael Chopra, who has formally joined Cardiff, will not be there, the rest of the squad are expected to be at the Academy of Light.

Bruce has his own ideas of players he would like to bring in ahead of the new season, but he is also keen to guard against making rash decisions on players’ futures when he has not yet worked with them.

Paul McShane, Nyron Nosworthy, Daryl Murphy and Dean Whitehead are among those to have caught the eye of other clubs, but Bruce is in no rush to cash in.

“Steve has a few players in mind that we’d love to have, but he’s very insistent on having a good look at what we have and he’s probably right,” said Quinn, who oversaw two years of heavy spending with Keane.

“We’ve maybe got some players who weren’t able to do well under a previous manager who might come alive and suddenly you’ve got an asset you didn’t realise you had. That’s good too.

“Rather than just trading for the sake of it, let’s try and be intelligent and smart. We know what we need and where we need it. There are areas where we have to do something, but there’ll be an opportunity for others too.”

Quinn accepted that Djibril Cisse’s departure following his loan means that a new striker is a priority, with Darren Bent and Fraizer Campbell two of the most likely arrivals.

While Bruce also hopes to land both Richard Dunne, a centre-back, and Lee Cattermole, a combative midfielder, there will be a concerted push to avoid a repeat of previous mistakes in the transfer market.

Halford, who spent last season on loan at Sheffield United, falls into that category and Quinn said: “We’ve learned and Steve will know my thoughts on that.

“The third year in, people are seeing us as a better option than they did in the first year. Then it was ‘ooh, we want to see some evidence’.

The second year, yes, we brought players in and looking back, we may have bought too many and maybe it upset the dressing room a little bit, but we did get some good ones.

“There’s some fabulous talent in there and if we can harness it with a couple of steely characters coming in, it’ll give us a chance. Our manager gets what we’re about.

“We’re on the same wavelength in terms of the type of player we need and I’ll not interfere once I know it’s that type of player who wants to come and give a performance week in, week out that the people will applaud. Steve knows that.”

Sunderland have appointed Alan Fettis as Academy goalkeeper coach.