SUNDERLAND took their summer spending to £21m yesterday when manager Steve Bruce made further progress on his recruitment drive by completing deals for Craig Gardner and Ji Dong-Won.
Both Gardner and Ji have signed three-year deals after finalising £4.5m and £2m transfers respectively and they follow Wednesday’s £12m capture of Connor Wickham.
It brought an end to a an exciting 48 hours for the Black Cats, who can also confirm free agents Keiren Westwood and Seb Larrson begin their Sunderland contracts from today.
But Bruce is keen to press ahead with further deals and he still hopes to convince Manchester United trio Darron Gibson, also interesting Newcastle, Wes Brown and John O’Shea to move to Wearside.
If Sunderland can pull off the £12m triple raid from United then Bruce will have taken his spending over the £30m mark after the £40.5m sales of Darren Bent and Jordan Henderson earlier this year.
For now he is satisfied with those players he has acquired, with Gardner’s decision to move to the North-East particularly exciting his new boss.
“Despite Birmingham’s relegation, Craig had a very strong season and has shown that he is more than capable of making a real impression in the Premier League,” said Bruce, who also turned Ahmed Elmohamady’s loan into a permanent arrangement for £2.5m from ENPPI.
“He has wonderful energy and enthusiasm for the game and that will stand us all in good stead.
“One thing I highlighted last season was the need to get more goals from midfield and in Craig we’ve got a player certainly able to do that.”
Gardner scored ten times in 37 league and cup appearances for Birmingham during last season’s relegation and ended as the club’s top scorer.
He started his career across the second city at Aston Villa, where he made 80 appearances before he was taken to St Andrew’s by Alex McLeish in January last year.
The 24-year-old is a former England Under-21 international.
The deal for Ji has been on the verge of being sealed for more than a week, but it was confirmed yesterday.
The 20-year-old will provide an option in attack along with Wickham, Asamoah Gyan and Fraizer Campbell, when he returns from serious injury deep into next season. Bruce also remains interested in bringing Manchester United striker Danny Welbeck back on loan.
Ji will need time to settle in the North-East, having moved from the Far East where he has been starring Chunnan Dragons.
“The boy has been in fantastic form,” said Bruce. “He was one of South Korea’s stand out performers at the Asian Cup so we are delighted to sign him.
“The Premier League is a very different league to the K-League so there is hard work ahead but you just have to look at players like Park Ji-Sung and Lee Chung-Yo to see how well Korean players are adapting to its pace and physicality.”
Ji has scored six in 11 appearances for South Korea and rose to prominence in his homeland when he scored four goals in January’s Asia Cup, where they finished third.
The 6ft 1in forward had an unsuccessful trial with Reading during the 2007-08 season and returned home to sign for Chunnan Dragons.
The Dragons accepted they had to sell their top talent this summer and there was also strong interest from PSV Eindhoven.
But the lure of testing himself in the Premier League proved too strong and he has been on Wearside since travelling over for a medical at the weekend.
The new players will meet their team-mates at the Academy of Light on Wednesday when they return for pre-season training.
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