Sunderland have now reached an agreement to sign a new midfielder for Regis Le Bris as they look to bolster their hopes of promotion back to the Premier League in the second half of the campaign.
Sunderland flying high in the Championship
With 18 games left of the Championship campaign, Sunderland sit just three points off the summit of England’s second tier despite currently being fourth.
The Black Cats have scored the third most goals in the competition to date, but face a tough second half of the campaign as they head away to fellow promotion hopefuls Burnley and Leeds United.
Burnley (Away)
Derby County (Away)
Plymouth Argyle (Home)
Middlesbrough (Away)
Watford (Home)
The likes of Chris Rigg, Anthony Patterson and Jude Bellingham have all grabbed attention so far for their prodigious talent amid links with clubs across Europe, but the club are keen to add more strength to their ranks as they underline their ambition to secure a return to the Premier League for the first time since the 206/2017 season.
To that end, they are expected to be busy in the January window despite Regis Le Bris outlining how difficult it was to recruit in the winter transfer window.
“It’s not easy to find the right pieces of the jigsaw,” he told the media. “It’s very important to find the right players rather than just focus on recruiting now. We have to be very accurate”
Now, it seems that Sunderland have managed to do just that, in a move that has developed incredibly quickly.
Sunderland reach agreement over astonishing loan move
That comes as multiple outlets now report that Sunderland have reached an agreement to reunite Roma midfielder Enzo Le Fee with Le Bris for the remainder of the campaign.
The Frenchman starred in Ligue 1 before earning a £20m move to Roma over the most recent summer transfer window. However, things have not worked out for him in the Eternal City and he has seen just 319 minutes of Serie A action, starting just twice under a succession of managers at the Stadio Olimpico.
He had been strongly linked with a move away, and Sunderland appear to have won that race after intense speculation, with the player on his way to Wearside for a Thursday medical.
Now, he is set to rejoin Le Bris in a shock move, with Fabrizio Romano confirming that the Black Cats have agreed an initial loan move for the midfielder, who still has almost five years left to run on his £69,000 a week deal in Rome.
Better yet for the Black Cats, it is added that his wages will be fully covered by Roma, who are clearly just keen to see the back of him already, saving around £1.7m for the Wearside outfit over the next six months.
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There is an option to buy the 24-year-old set at between €23m and €24m (£20m), and should he help Sunderland get promoted back to the top flight come the end of the campaign that option will become an obligation to buy the France U23 international.
For their part, Sunderland are believed to have pulled off a coup here with his arrival, with Football Expert Zach Lowry claiming that Le Bris has secured an “absolute gem” for the northeast outfit, especially if they are able to return him to his pre-Roma form. Can he be the man to help secure promotion for the Black Cats?