STEVE BRUCE last night claimed Kenwyne Jones remains integral to his plans at Sunderland, despite scouring the market for another striker to bolster his options.

Bruce opted to cancel his scheduled press briefing yesterday after it became clear that Sunderland’s Premier League fixture with Bolton Wanderers was not going to go ahead.

The postponement has given the Black Cats boss further time to work on his squad ahead of the trip to Chelsea a week today, with the extratime to prepare likely to be good news for his injured players.

But it also means Bruce can continue to chip away on the transfer front, with two new full-backs and a forward highest on his list of priorities.

German striker Kevin Kuranyi remains in the Sunderland manager’s sights, although the player’s insistence he wants to stay with Schalke until the summer at least has reduced the chances of a deal.

If Kuranyi does not arrive in the expected £3.5m deal being talked about, Bruce knows he can ill-afford to leave himself short in numbers by offloading one of his better players.

Sources close to Birmingham are adamant Blues boss Alex McLeish remains privately confident of landing Jones in an £11m deal.

McLeish fully intends to make Jones Birmingham’s highest-paid player and fight off interest from Stoke City.

Tottenham, who made a £15m offer last January, could also renew their interest.

Bruce, however, claimed on Sunderland’s official website yesterday that the Trinidad & Tobago international will not be leaving this month.

“We haven’t received any bids for Kenwyne. He’s an important part of our team and he isn’t going anywhere,” said Bruce. “I’m trying to build a squad that can compete here at Sunderland and I want quality players like Kenwyne Jones at this club.”

Selling Jones would mean Bruce having just Darren Bent, Fraizer Campbell and teenager Ryan Noble as his only strikers in contention.

Both Daryl Murphy and David Healy would be allowed to leave at the right price.

That is why, regardless of the Jones situation, Bruce has been looking to bring in another striker, having explored the possibility of landing Emile Heskey and Kuranyi.

The former Wigan manager is also aware that such a situation could make Jones – a £6m signing by Roy Keane from Southampton – unsettled and Bruce feels a monthlong transfer window is unfair on all concerned.

“I’ve already expressed my dislike of the transfer window,”

he said. “It’s an unsettling time for players, for clubs and it certainly makes a manager’s job all the more difficult.”

With such a small timeframe to bring in reinforcements, Bruce knows his feelings cannot distract from the task in hand.

He fully intends to turnaround Sunderland’s ailing form, having failed to win any of their last seven league matches.

As well as Kuranyi, Bruce would like to have added Wigan left-back Maynor Figueroa before the end of the month.

He is, though, unwilling to match the £7m asking price.

But Figueroa is the only left-back being courted by Sunderland, with Bruce working on a number of possibilities to play on the opposite flank.

Talks were due to start with Hamburg yesterday about the possible sale of Ivory Coast international Guy Demel, rated at around £5.5m and also wanted by Inter Milan.

Bruce is keeping his options open and still regards Aston Villa’s former Newcastle defender Habib Beye, Tottenham’s Alan Hutton and Bayern Munich’s Andreas Goerlitz as realistic alternatives – if the price is right.