DAVID MOYES has dropped the biggest hint yet that he wants to stay in charge of Sunderland next season and is planning contract talks with players next week ahead of a summer of change on Wearside.

The club’s owner Ellis Short has assured Moyes he wants him to stay after meeting up in London on Monday along with chief executive Martin Bain following confirmation of the Black Cats’ relegation to the Championship.

There remains uncertainty surrounding Moyes’ position despite the initial discussions with Short and they will chat again when the season has come to an end, and the manager will learn more about Short’s plans then.

The American businessman has actively looked to sell up over the last 12 months and, although there has been no word from him during that period, it is still thought he will listen to offers following the fall out of the Premier League.

Sunderland face a substantial drop in TV revenue even though they will be guaranteed £40m parachute payments for two years. The latest set of accounts published, however, still show a gross debt of £137m (made up of £68m owed to bank loans and £69m to Short), while the net debt was posted at £110m.

Moyes has stressed the importance of rebuilding the squad to enable him to attack the Championship and push for promotion next season, although clearly he will seek reassurance there will be funds available.

The Sunderland boss said: “I have a four year contract, I have had good talks with the owner and Martin Bain. When we get to the end we will have another conversation.

“All we have done is talk about the past and the present and we have talked about players coming out of contract etc, which we will deal with next week. It wasn’t solely set on one thing, it was on two or three different things that we had to discuss.”

Moyes claimed he felt he had the “100 per cent” backing from Short and Bain and he was told that in the meeting earlier this week. He had replied “yes” in another interview when he was asked if he was committed to staying next season.

He then, speaking to the written press ahead of today’s trip to Hull City, said: “(The talks were) very good. When I say very good, I mean as well as we could hope.

“All I have done is go in and talk about some of the things that have gone on in the past and how we look to address it in the present. We have not nailed down everything because we have only had an initial conversation.

“The detail has been there. I have given bits of the detail. I have not wanted to put much thought or too much effort into the Championship while I have been in the Premier League. But the initial thoughts and initial things are down, we will talk about it when we get to the end of the season.”

One of the problems Sunderland’s managers have faced in recent years is that they have been unable to make the squad as strong as they would have liked, with Moyes in particular under the impression last summer he would have had more money to spend.

The club’s increased debt level will hardly help the squad restructuring required, with ten players out of contract (three of those loans) this summer. That will at least help reduce a wage bill highlighted at £84m for the accounts up to the end of July last year.

Moyes, though, insists he knows what is required to turn things around even if a large section of Sunderland fans want him out. There has been speculation already on who could replace him ahead of the final three matches.

He said: “The conversations with Ellis have been very good. We have discussed all the different things. The situations you are talking about (squad strengthening) were like last August when we were in the same situation and we thought we were going to be short with the squad we had available. We thought we were going to be short. I had those discussions with Ellis right at the start of the season.

“The positives here are that there is a nucleus of a decent squad there. There are 11/12 players there and if we can add correctly to that … obviously we know we will lose players … but if we can add to that correctly there will a nucleus of a pretty strong group of players. There is no guarantee of anything. That’s what it looks like to me.”