SIMON GRAYSON is hoping Sunderland’s fine start to the season will make it easier for him to keep his in-demand players beyond the end of the transfer window.

The Black Cats extended their unbeaten start to the campaign as they claimed a 3-1 win at Norwich City this afternoon, with the victory ending a seven-year wait for a league win in August.

Lewis Grabban’s second and third goals of the season sandwiched a fine long-range strike from Aiden McGeady as Grayson’s side successfully built on their opening-day draw with Derby County.

Grayson has made a fine job of remodelling the squad he inherited from David Moyes, but there could be further upheaval in the next three weeks with Lamine Kone, Didier Ndong and Wahbi Khazri continuing to attract attention from clubs in the Premier League and overseas.

Kone, who performed superbly at centre-half today, looks especially vulnerable given that Sunderland turned down an £18m bid from Everton as recently as last summer, but Grayson is hoping his side’s strong early-season form will make it easier to persuade players to remain on Wearside despite last season’s relegation to the Championship.

“Like any other manager, I know I could still lose players before the window shuts,” said the Sunderland boss, who will take his side to Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday night. “That’s just part and parcel of the window still being open, which I don’t agree with.

“But winning matches helps keeps players, so we’ll see. We’ll just have to see where things go. I’m sure there’ll be inquiries for some of our players right up to the last minute, but there’ll also be inquiries for players at other clubs to come to our club too.”

Kone caught the eye repeatedly at Carrow Road, although he had to fight for the man-of-the-match honours with Grabban, who scored an own goal to go along with his two strikes in the right net, and McGeady, who scored Sunderland’s second before setting up Grabban for his side’s third goal.

Grayson helped resurrect McGeady’s career at Preston last season, and made the Republic of Ireland international his number one target from the moment he was appointed at the Stadium of Light.

Some hard bargaining eventually resulted in Everton agreeing to a £250,000 deal, and on the evidence of today’s display, the transfer could turn out to be the steal of the summer.

“It looks pretty good when we tried to buy him a few years ago for £9m,” said Grayson. “It’s come a long way. He’s a player that has immense ability.

“He fell out of love with the game before I took him to Preston and let him express himself. His ability is as good as anybody I’ve worked with – I said that last year.

“You saw bits today of what he can do, and he's fallen back in love with the game. When I got the job, he was the first player I wanted to sign. It took a few weeks to sort out, but at £250,000, I don’t think it’s a bad deal.”

While McGeady provided flashes of brilliance, Sunderland’s success was built on a bedrock of hard work and organisation, characteristics Grayson was keen to engender throughout the pre-season period.

Disciplined and energetic when Norwich had the ball, Sunderland’s players were clinical and creative when they found themselves in possession, and while their manager was not about to get carried away after just two league matches, he was delighted to see his work on the training ground paying dividends.

“We know this a tough place to come, and we knew with it being their first home game in the Championship they would come out quickly and we’d have to withstand some pressure,” he said. “That’s what we did.

“I think the players carried out the game plan really well. They let them have it in certain areas, and broke quickly on the counter-attack, which we can do with the players we’ve got. When we get opportunities we have to be clinical, and when you go 3-0 up, you can’t have too many complaints.

“You can see there’s a smile amongst the players and they’re enjoying what they’re doing. They’re certainly not getting carried away because we’re only two league games in, but it’s a strong start for us and a positive one.

“We’ve had a lot of problems that have happened at this football club, but we’ve said from day one that all those things have happened in the past. It’s about what we do going forward now. We’ve suffered challenges, but there’s a group together and that’s the big thing about it.”