JANUARY’S transfer window is already high in David Moyes’ thinking in his bid to turn around Sunderland’s fortunes, but the straight-talking Scot admits the next couple of months will be crucial ahead of the recruitment push.

Sunderland’s position at the foot of the Premier League table has already got many fans thinking that top-flight status could be lost come May.

The word from the club is that chief executive Martin Bain and Moyes are focused on the longer term rather than looking for shorter term rewards, which have been good enough to keep the Black Cats in the top tier in recent years.

But Moyes also knows he needs to add further new faces to the squad in January if he is to make Sunderland a tougher nut to crack after losing six of their opening eight league games under him.

The challenge facing him and the players, however, is they know they need to ensure Sunderland are in with a fighting chance of staying up before the transfer window opens for business on January 1 – to put further pressure on the existing squad to perform.

“I’m due to speak with him (Ellis Short, the owner) about it,” said Moyes. “I’ve spoken with Martin about it. I’ll need to wait and see what will come around and we will try to get a plan together for January.

“It will be a key month. What we need to make sure is that we are in the game come January. We’ve got to be in a position to compete.

“We are definitely going to have to add players to the squad and find a way of getting players who can help give us a bit more. Because when your team is not doing well, the players need a lift as well.

“They also should know that they’ll replace players if you are not doing well enough. You don’t want anybody to think they are comfortable in the jersey if they are not winning. We need that level of competition.”

Sam Allardyce’s work in the January transfer window was instrumental in keeping Sunderland up last season and he suggested 18 points was required at that stage to be in with a chance to doing that.

Given how Sunderland have only claimed two points from eight matches, Moyes knows he faces a task just to get himself on an average point per game total by Christmas ahead of this afternoon’s trip to West Ham United.

He said: “In my head I have an idea of the amount of wins, what we need to do, it might be quite a low season this year. We don’t know yet, but it might be.

“We need to get the first win and then see if we can go from there. I am saying it every week. I hope I stop saying it soon and say ‘Hey, we’ve got over that, let’s go’. At the moment unfortunately I’ve not been able to do that.”

With talk of a long term plan after the comments of chief executive Bain in an in-house interview with the club website, Moyes was asked whether Sunderland would be better off going down to enable a fresh start.

But Moyes said: “I’m only at this moment looking to stay in the Premier League. There may come a point later on when I have to change my view, but at this moment in time I am only focused on staying in the Premier League and we have got a period in January, the January window, when we have to be in fighting so that we can try to do something about it.

“For me we are at a little stage now, can we get ourselves not too far away? You see when we were 1-0 up at Southampton, with two or three minutes to go, we were 2-0 up against Crystal Palace. If one of those had gone our way then I don’t know if we would be talking quite the same.

“They didn’t go our way, so it’s what ifs. I just feel we have to be careful that we don’t lose sight that we are not a million miles away. We have got to find a way of getting closer.”

Moyes had a chat with Ellis Short on Thursday following a week when it emerged he has been seeking investment from overseas, although a sale of the club is not thought to be imminent.

The Sunderland boss said: “I have not sensed, and he has never once said anything to me about, anything different … he is my boss.”

And he added: “It’s not begun the way I wanted it. But, no, I have got to say, that in my conversations with him, I have not sensed that. I have been speaking to him, I spoke to him last night and about a week or so ago.”

Moyes knows West Ham have also struggled to impress this season, particularly in their new surroundings in the London Stadium.

He said: “I was very close to the West Ham job a couple of years ago. It’s a really good club West Ham and I’ve got to say I was incredibly interested. It was just that I was in Spain at the time and I had only just gone to Spain. It was just after Sam Allardyce.

“It was a consideration. But I was in Spain and I felt as if I wanted to stay in Spain and see my time out before I came back. It is a really good club, it’s a real traditional club with big support. The excitement was that they were moving to the new stadium. It was a possibility. We spoke to some members of West Ham.”