CLINTON MORRISON'S hopes of signing for Sunderland seem doomed before the two clubs have even made official contact.

The Birmingham City striker has become restless at St Andrews after finding himself behind Christophe Dugarry and Mikael Forssell in the selection queue.

However, any club interested in taking Morrison on loan would have to pay a large chunk of his lucrative contract - which he signed in the summer of 2002 after completing a £4.5m switch from Crystal Palace.

And, while Sunderland's cash problems have been eased somewhat by selling on a number of their prize assets, they are unlikely to be in the market for a player who commands such high wages.

Birmingham boss Steve Bruce is also keen to keep hold of Morrison in a bid to keep his options open in the final third, which is yet another stumbling block in any possible deal.

Nevertheless, Sunderland are in desperate need of goals, having scored just 24 in 21 matches in Division One this season.

Marcus Stewart has been axed from the Black Cats' starting line-up after finding the net just twice in his last 14 matches, while Kevin Kyle grabbed his first goal in seven against Burnley on Saturday.

Morrison was a member of Mick McCarthy's squad while he was in charge of the Republic of Ireland and would no doubt love to have the Blues front-man at the Stadium of Light.

And the talented forward said: "There's been some talk about Sunderland. Mick McCarthy knows me and I know him. He's a great coach and I'd love to work with him again, even if it was for just a month or two.

"I need to play matches, to get goals and I need to regain match fitness and, if I do, then there's something in it for Sunderland as well because they are going for promotion."

Meanwhile, Sunderland midfielder Jeff Whitley has joined McCarthy in calling for Julio Arca's red card against Wigan to be rescinded.

Referee Ray Olivier sent Arca off for diving during Tuesday night's draw with Wigan - despite appearing to be fouled by Jimmy Bullard.

But ten-man Sunderland's fighting spirit earned them a point in a match between two promotion-chasing sides.

And Whitley said: "We're very disappointed with Julio's dismissal. We thought it was a blatant foul but the referee's seen something else. We've just got to get on with it. We're pleased with the way we stuck together in difficult circumstances and after we got the equaliser we really felt we could get a win. It was a very up and down game but a draw was a good result bearing in mind we went down to ten men so early."

Whitley believes the result against Wigan was another indication as to how to tough the league is this season.

He said; "We did say it was going to be tough and that's been borne out by the results so far. We will have to graft and you just don't get any easy games. We need to make our own luck but that only comes from working hard.

"We're still in touch with the leaders and Tuesday's match was another example of the leading sides taking points off each other. There's no team which looks better than the rest in this league and we're just striving to get the goals we need to go up."

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