According to reports from Mirror Football yesterday morning, Sunderland will make an approach for former Arsenal captain and Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira if Dick Advocaat quits his post as manager.
The Black Cats remain winless in the Premier League after seven games and are currently rooted to the bottom of the table after losing 3-0 to Manchester United on Saturday. Even if they beat West Ham next weekend, they still won’t have enough points to escape the relegation zone, with 17th-place Stoke City currently four ahead.
Advocaat, who had planned to leave the Stadium of Light at the end of last season until being convinced into extending his contract by a year, has already said he’ll stand aside if Sunderland find a stronger candidate to steer them clear of the drop.
And according to Mirror Football that could well be Vieira; who spent nine years at Arsenal and captained them to their last Premier League title – the legendary Invincibles campaign of 2003/04 – before leaving for Juventus in summer 2005.
After four-and-a-half years in Serie A, the majority spent with Inter Milan, the 1998 World Cup winner returned to the Premier League with Manchester City in January 2010, where he now works as a youth coach.
The Citizens are keen to keep Vieira on due to his excellent oversight of their youth development program. But the Frenchman was on Sunderland’s shortlist of potential Advocaat replacements during the summer and Mirror Football claim they’re now ready to ‘go back for’ him.
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