Sunderland are back out on the grass at the Academy of Light with their first pre season friendly of the summer just days away. 

The Black Cats head to the Brewery Field this weekend for a friendly tie against National League North side Spennymoor Town, who are managed by former Sunderland midfielder Tommy Miller. 

The Black Cats boss is hopeful that he'll receive some answers on his out-of-contract quartet and some transfer targets this week.  

Charlie Wyke, Luke O'Nien, Aiden McGeady and Denver Hume has all been offered fresh terms by the club but have yet to make a decision. 

All four players will have offers elsewhere. Wyke is a wanted man and it looks likely he'll move north of the border with Celtic.

Elsewhere, Sunderland are expected firm up their interest in Manchester United youngster Ethan Galbraith this week.

With preparations underway for the League One season, Lee Johnson is currently low on numbers in his first team with just 19 players to pick from, including a number of youngsters.

While those players may have had a few weeks to recharge the batteries before coming back to pre season training, Lee Johnson says it's been the opposite for him with the Black Cats boss trolling through Wyscout, a website for used for football player analytics and data, and holding meetings with the players they want for next season.

"I've been having zooms with potential players we might bring in and our current players that we want to retain and players that have ran out of contract that we want to renew" Johnson told the official club website.

"I think a lot of that is the (quiet) market and what the market constitutes. We're in, hopefully, the back end of the pandemic and a lot of Championship clubs have probably been hit most. 

"Funnily enough a lot of League One clubs seem to be going for it this year and there's a fair bit of money flying about in League One so that will be interesting, it will probably make it a lot more competitive than it's ever been.

"At the same time, obviously our challenge is to go and recruit to win the league, it's as simple as that. These are the sleepless nights you have but they're also filled with hope but, I like to think that football IQ, that enables you to streamline financially but also get the best team possible for that."