AS Sunderland work on adding three more players to Jack Ross’ squad, one signing already through the Stadium of Light doors has explained how talk of the troubles of the last couple of seasons has been banned.

Dylan McGeouch, signed as a free agent after leaving Hibernian, has played his first few games as a Black Cats player and was at the hub of the midfield in Tuesday night’s win at Grimsby Town.

He is one of six recruits under Stewart Donald’s regime so far, while Sunderland are working on deals for Cheltenham’s Mohamed Eisa, Bradford’s Charlie Wyke and Reading’s George Evans after tabling bids for all three.

The victory at Grimsby was the first under Ross and there were improvements in the way Sunderland played compared to outings against Hartlepool and Darlington. Now the challenge is to build on that at St Mirren on Saturday, just two weeks before the start of the League One season.

McGeouch has settled in well so far and has been impressed by Ross’ managerial approach, which has included making sure a new-look pool of players does not dwell on what went wrong in either of the back-to-back relegation campaigns.

There are still survivors from those days hanging around, young and old, but Ross has seen no reason to go down the road of trying to rectify what has been going wrong having underwent a change of ownership and management since the end of last season.

McGeouch said: “He's been great since the day I came in, very approachable and great for the lads. He's been positive as well, as have the backroom staff. Everyone's tried to change the mentality of the squad.

“There's no looking at what happened in previous years, we're looking to bounce back and be a positive energy. I think the boys are adapting to that in training. It's different every day and the boys are enjoying it. You can see the performances getting better and better so hopefully we can keep that going.

“As a new player you need to find your way into a team and understand people's games. They need to understand me.

“I feel that understanding of each other's games coming and hopefully in the coming weeks it will click more. It's new and there are a lot of new faces so we just need to bed ourselves in as a squad each day in training and games and hopefully we can progress.”

Sunderland are working hard on offloading the players who no longer want to be around. Papy Djilobodji is one of those who has not returned to training, and Donald revealed yesterday the defender is not being paid for taking such a stance.

Djilobodji has a number of clubs interested after last season’s loan at Dijon, but the finances involved in a player with a lucrative wage after his £8m switch from Chelsea two years ago is making it hard to do a deal.

Sunderland have handed a new one-year deal to 20-year-old winger Luke Molyneux, who should play an important part under Ross, but there are still plenty players who could be moved on before the window closes.

In the absence of Lee Cattermole at Grimsby the other night, McGeouch impressed in the holding midfield role and he is looking forward to challenging for that position after deciding to move to Wearside.

“If I can get on the ball, make things happen and dictate the tempo, then great. That's kind of my job in the team and what I bring,” said the 25-year-old.

“The players are just getting to know each other, it was only our third game, and we're getting to know each other and understand one another a wee bit more. That should improve as the weeks go on.

“For me playing in the middle of the park it's just about trying to get things moving and letting boys express themselves going forward while I keep things ticking over.

“I played deep as a kind of No 6 last year with two ahead of me. I did that again on Tuesday and tried to dictate the tempo of the game. It worked at some points so hopefully over the coming weeks it will get better, the team will adapt and I'll adapt to the team. I'm positive and looking forward to it.

“That's the role I enjoy, getting the ball in deep areas and letting boys progress up the park and express themselves while I back it up. Hopefully I can do that here and be a big influence on the team.”

Five Sunderland academy players have signed new deals at the club.

Owen Gamble, Brandon Taylor and Alex Storey – all members of Ellliott Dickman’s under-23 side - have signed new terms until the end of this up-coming campaign.

Adam Bale and Jack Connolly have also agreed deals for the same length of time, with the duo signing their first professional contracts.