CHRIS COLEMAN could make a remarkable return to Sunderland, with Stewart Donald admitting he could turn to the recently-dismissed Black Cats boss as he looks to appoint a new manager.

One of Ellis Short’s final acts as Sunderland owner was to terminate Coleman’s contract in the wake of this month’s relegation from the Championship.

Donald conducted his first press conference as Sunderland’s new owner at the Stadium of Light this afternoon, sitting alongside his fellow director Charlie Methven, and the pair were keen to stress that they had not been involved in Coleman’s departure.

They intend to speak to two or three managerial options this week, with St Mirren boss Jack Ross and former Sunderland midfielder Alex Rae understood to feature highly on their wanted list. However, Ross is also being targeted by Championship side Ipswich Town.

Bolton Wanderers manager Phil Parkinson and Leicester City coach Michael Appleton are also under consideration, with Donald determined to complete the appointment of a new boss by the start of next week.

Coleman is also an option, and having previously talked at length about his desperation to help turn Sunderland around, the recently-departed boss would almost certainly be willing to discuss a potential return to the Stadium of Light.

“Potentially, we would look to speak to Chris,” said Donald. “There’s a view of whether or not League One is Chris’ domain, but when we’ve looked at the list of people who have applied, and you say you want to speak to three or four people, I think Chris would potentially be in those three or four.

“It wasn’t us (who sacked Coleman), and I wouldn’t rule out potentially talking to Chris. We’ve got one week, we believe, to get ourselves organised. From a fans’ perspective, Chris is obviously the visual one.

“What Ellis Short has done through this whole process is that he has tidied up the business as best he can to reduce the liabilities moving forward. He has decided that Chris is one of those, and that is up to him. That’s absolutely nothing to do with us, and we wouldn’t necessarily exclude Chris from the process of arranging a new manager. It was completely and utterly down to Ellis.”

Donald’s takeover was formally signed off this morning, with the Oxford-based businessman having agreed to pay Ellis Short £40m to become the 100 per cent shareholder.

While there had been talk of a consortium of ‘international investors’, Donald is the only person to have put money into the club, although he has not ruled out the possibility of bringing other people on board in the future.

He will begin his work in earnest in the next couple of days, having so far been unable to make formal approaches to anyone.

“We haven’t been able to do anything up to now,” said Donald. “You get a vibe and a feel from the footballing industry (about who might be interested), and there are obviously lots of people who have applied and we’ve looked at those.

“We’ve got a list of people that have applied that we would be interested in, and we’ve also got another idea about who might be interested in the Sunderland job. Then we have our own people who we think could do a job for Sunderland. But I wouldn’t exclude Chris Coleman from that.”