SUNDERLAND boss Alex Neil is a predicting a ‘supermarket sweep’ in the last week of the transfer window with a number of Championship clubs still yet to finish their business.

The Black Cats manager wants at least four or five more signings before the 31st August with Neil looking for strength in numbers heading into the Championship campaign.

There are a number of Championship sides still scouring the market and negotiating deals for players and the Scotsman predicts an inevitability when it comes to the final days of the window. When asked by The Northern Echo whether he thinks there will be a mad rush in the last week, he replied: “Always is.”

He continued: “We’ve got months and months to do our work and then in true fashion, we’ll wait until the last few days and then we will be scrambling about like a fire sale.

“There’s no stopping it. The minute you put a timeframe on something, there is a guarantee that nobody is going to do anything for 90% of the time and then for that little period that’s left. Everybody is scrambling about, it’s like a supermarket sweep.”

The Sunderland boss is satisfied with the personnel in his squad but the club recently missed out on a deal for striker Nathan Broadhead.

The 24-year-old was in talks with the Black Cats over a possible return throughout the summer but decided on a move to Wigan Athletic. But Neil is swiftly moving on from Broadhead as he added: “As far as I am concerned, Nathan is a Wigan player and there isn’t much more to be said about that.

“We’re obviously eternally grateful for what Nathan contributed to us while we were here because it wasn’t for him, I am not convinced we would have got to where we got to. His goals were crucial but at the end of the day, he has moved onto a different stage of his career now.”

With Sunderland continuing to work behind the scenes in the recruitment department, Neil remains level headed about missing out on Broadhead and acknowledges that the nature of the transfer market is a moving project that could change course at any time.

The 41-year-old said: “The difficulty you’ve got with targets is you’ll have a whole list of targets for different positions and what will naturally happen is that some guys will come late in the day that you didn’t think were available and you didn’t consider because we didn’t think we were going to get him or he’s not available.

“For the other teams, there will be guys that played a fundamental part last season for other teams and then this season, in the next two or three weeks, they might have to find themselves another home to play.

“The transfer market is a moving thing all the time. It’s so fluid. Guys will become available that you don’t expect, guys will drop off that you think you have a chance of getting, guys will stay because maybe someone in that position at that club they are at has then got injured so they can’t let them out.

“There is so much goes into it. Honestly, people must think there is a list and we’ll just say ‘we’ll take him’. There is so much background work that goes into it. Making sure they have got the right profile, temperament, mentality. Then there is affordability as well so that naturally complicates things.”