IF there was ever a sign that a club’s owner has had enough and wants out, you would struggle to come up with a stronger one than hearing Ellis Short is yet to speak to the manager he appointed six months ago.

That is the scenario at the Stadium of Light and with Chris Coleman's half-year anniversary approaching he has admitted he has thought about flying over to the United States to surprise him.

Coleman would love to have the chance to persuade Short to give it one more go, with the American businessman desperate to sell after becoming fed up of pouring his own money into the club.

The latest set of accounts are due to be published soon, but it is understood the debts in excess of £137m that were last reported – with £69m owed to Short himself – are what have made selling the huge sticking point.

Sunderland’s situation on the pitch is on the verge of getting worse; two more defeats could see confirmation of relegation to League One arriving next Tuesday if other results go against them.

But Coleman wouldn’t necessarily want to leave, and if Short has made no progress in selling up then the Sunderland manager would love one chance to persuade the club’s frustrated owner to give one last push to turn things round.

The Sunderland boss said: “I have actually thought about doorstepping him to be honest! Just turning up out of the blue. He has pumped a lot of money into the club I know.

“For me coming in, I have got loads of ideas, I want to see what I can do. I have loads of enthusiasm for it, and Ellis has lost his - for whatever reason.

“I would love to get in front of him and have a chat with him. I would say to him ‘help us, help the club again, it can be something again’. It may not look like that in the short term but in the long term it can be. It might be a longer conversation than that... it would be to say ‘come and help us, help us out because we really need it’.”

If Short doesn’t have a change of heart in the weeks ahead and the seemingly inevitable relegation to the Championship happens, then the prospect of taking on a club in League One might not be as attractive to prospective buyers. Coleman disagrees.

“There is a big debt to take on, but you see a lot of owners nowadays, multi-billionaires, because they like football and they see it as something new, something different, something they can build and be proud of,” said Coleman.

“There’s not many better clubs out there than this one. I know there is debt, but when you think of the people linked with buying the club, they are very wealthy people.

“I know we are talking about a debt of £100m or whatever it is, it’s a staggering amount of money, but if you are talking about these wealthy people then to them they can afford that. They can see it as a long term investment, take it on and do it their way.

“They don’t have to worry about building a training ground, building a fan base because the fans are waiting, they are there already, so there are a lot of pluses at this club. The one negative is the £100m debt or however much it is, and flirting with relegation.”

Coleman added: “You can look at League One in two ways. It’s further away from the Premier League and everyone wants to be there, alternatively it could be everything off the table, a blank canvas, and how are we going to do it?

“To a lot of people that will attract them because they can start from fresh to do it their way and at a club as good as this one. There are other clubs I’d imagine who are up for sale, but no disrespect to them, this is probably the biggest one in the worst place of those who are in a bit of difficulty.

“That gives us a chance for someone to come in and say ‘we can scrap all that, so let’s start again and do it this way’. That can be attractive, a blank canvas, to certain people, I hope.”

Coleman was not talking as if he has already resigned himself to Sunderland going down; quite the opposite. He was just asked to speculate on the situation if the worst happened, having earlier outlined he would love to have the chance to lead the club back to a higher standing.

He knows that to stand any chance of keeping Sunderland up then they can’t afford to lose against Leeds this afternoon and then against Norwich City on Tuesday – with the gap to safety already eight points with only six games left.

Coleman reported that there is nothing close or even in the pipeline that he knows of in terms of a takeover, so the focus has to be purely on keeping Sunderland up until it is mathematically impossible.

He said: “The feeling of relegation initially is that it is a failure. Not just me, for all of us. To go to that place though doesn’t mean we can’t come back. I think we can come back stronger and better. I hope it’s me, I really do. This club can come back.

“If you look at Blackburn and Wigan now, they dropped and nobody wants that feeling. If you look at them now, 18 months earlier it wasn’t a good atmosphere, they weren’t a together bunch.

“If you go there now they are buzzing. Even Wigan, who haven’t got big crowds, but it’s a great atmosphere. Same with Blackburn, a really good footballing club, I have been there as a player, and it’s thriving now, buzzing.

“If the worst happens here, and I hope it doesn’t, then there is no reason why we can’t come back. You just have to look at what’s happened here and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We have to make sure we build it properly.

“It’s not something we can’t come back from, look at Wolves, they have dropped and kicked back. In our industry, we all have egos, some bigger than others, and that word relegation is a no-no. No matter where you are.

“That is not something that is taken lightly at any club. But it’s not a place we can’t come back from. It could end up being the making of the club, in the long run. In the short term it is painful, in the long run it could be a cleanser.”