Million-pound promotion bonus on offer - Murray

Bob Murray has promised the Sunderland squad that they will will all share in a £1m incentive payment if the club get promoted this season.

"I’ll be more than happy to write the cheque – the only thing on my mind at the moment is that we get back into the top flight. It's where this club wants and needs to be.

"The players know that if they win promotion this season they will be well rewarded."

And the chairman did his best to dismiss criticism surrounding his alleged absence from proceedings at Sunderland.

"I've been working behind the scenes, working harder than I've ever done in the past. I've been to plenty of games this season but I’ve never sought the spotlight.

"Instead, I've been doing everything in my power to put the club back on an even keel, financially, while at the same time trying to give Mick every chance of getting the team promoted. All I'm interested in is getting us back into the Premiership.

Murray insists the club has 'turned the corner' financially and successfully avoided administration - and says he thinks the club could survive back in the Premiership.

"I'd one aim at the start of this season and that was to avoid doing a Leicester, Derby County or Ipswich and going into administration.

"Through hard work and good decision making we have achieved that objective: the club is stable.

"People have questioned whether it would be wise for us to go straight back up, or even if the club wants to go straight back up, but as a chairman I'd rather be dealing with the problem of how to keep us in the Premiership rather than the problem of how to get us there.

"We've only one objective - and that's to get this club promoted come May. It's our only goal."