JACK ROSS insists that winning League One with Sunderland is the outcome he wants from his first season in charge on Wearside, even if he claims not to know the size of the budget he will be working with this summer.

The Black Cats’ 12th permanent managerial appointment in ten years took his seat in front of the media at the Academy of Light yesterday afternoon, having returned from holiday on Tuesday and gone from there.

Falkirk-born Ross, who has signed a two year deal, spent much of his family break focusing on his new role, assessing squads, length of players’ contracts and examining emails and text messages in between playing with his children.

Having been questioned by the media at Sunderland’s plush training complex, fit for a Premier League rather than a League One side, Ross now insists he will be dealing with the first team matters, including the futures of players starting from today.

Such was his desire to accept the challenge at Sunderland, the 41-year-old claims he has not even had the discussions yet about what sort of money he will have available to tinker with the squad he has inherited.

Ross, who was introduced to the media by executive director Charlie Methven, said: "The thing is for me, and you might not believe this, that in any job I've taken on I've never really been concerned about budgets. It doesn't really bother me.

“The challenge for me is to find players that can make the club better. If I can get them great, if I can't I'll get another one. You might think that's just a soundbite, trust me any chairman that I've ever worked for will tell you I never ask, it doesn't really bother me.

“My job is to get the best out of what I've got available. Ultimately, if you do well and that rolls on, you'll be able to bring better players.”

Given how John O’Shea, Marc Wilson, Kazenga LuaLua and Billy Jones are all out of contract, talking to those will be a strong starting point. He also knows that there are some big earners at the club, like Jack Rodwell, who could do with being moved on.

On top of those there are then players who could be sold on if the right offer comes along, after a week when Sunderland rejected a £2m bid from Brighton for Paddy McNair. The chances that there will be more to come.

Ross said: "I think that job will start from tomorrow in earnest. That's when the proper discussions will start, about how we shape the squad. We've got to make sure it's ready from the first day of pre-season.

“It would be remiss to say who that would involve, what salaries they would involve and what positions they would be playing. The make-up of that could change over the coming weeks. It's about trying to identify what we need to get out of this league and then make sure we have the right components within that.

"That could mean players who are already at the club, it could mean players we need to recruit, but those discussions and that assessment will probably have to wait until tomorrow. It's been a pretty whirlwind five or six days to get in and start the job properly.

"If I'm being fairly pragmatic I'd imagine there will be a high turnover of players here. That's realistically probably going to be the case but it can change over the coming weeks that number could change and we could end up with more or less depending on the circumstances.

"A high turnover of players is something I've had before, in my first window at St Mirren I had ten players in and ten out so there've been circumstances where I've had to deal with that during a season. That's more challenging than dealing with it in pre-season. If you're going to have that level of turnover it's probably better to have it now than in January.”

When Ross took over at St Mirren they were bottom of the Championship in Scotland and he didn’t win a league game in his first two months; before then turning the Buddies into the league champions before leaving this summer.

"The owners haven't said that (I have to win League One) but for me, yes,” he said. “I've never really had an issue with that, if you go through any old interviews of mine, I've always been very clear about having ambitions and goals.

“The problem is that when you do that, you're sometimes perceived as being arrogant when you don't reach them, people take great delight in telling you that you've failed.

"You've got to have clear objectives and ambitions and goals, for me it's to win promotion. It's going to be a challenge and a lot of work to be done in a short time. It's going to be a tough league but it's got to be like that and not just for me, but for everyone involved in the football side. They've got to have that drive as well.”

Inevitably Ross will be making changes. The first three players he has been heavily linked with are all from Scotland, with Hibernian’s John McGinn and St Mirren pair Gavin Reilly and Kyle Magennis in mind.

He also has to decide on his backroom staff. The only other new arrival at this stage is his assistant James Fowler, so decisions have to be made on the likes of Robbie Stockdale and Adrian Tucker, all of whom he will talking to soon.