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Joint caretaker manager Billy McKinlay has left Sunderland for West Ham United.

The Scot was David Moyes’ assistant manager at Real Sociedad, and will link up with the former Black Cats boss at the London Stadium.

McKinlay was one half of the management team which took charge after the sacking of Simon Grayson a week-and-a-half ago.

Sunderland are expected to step up their search for a new full-time manager in the coming days but until they find someone, Robbie Stockdale will prepare the team for Saturday’s Championship visit of Millwall.

Although Stockdale and McKinlay were technically equals when they led the team to a 1-0 defeat at Middlesbrough in Sunderland’s last match, Stockdale was the more prominent of the two, conducting the media engagements and more visible on the touchline than his counterpart. This was despite the fact that former Scotland international McKinlay had managerial experience, briefly with Watford, then with Norwegian club Stabaek. Stockdale has been Sunderland’s caretaker manager in the past, but the game at the Riverside was the first he had taken charge of.

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McKinlay joined the Black Cats as a scout, and was only brought onto the coaching staff in September when Grayson’s assistant Ian Snodin was suffering from high blood pressure. Snodin was sacked along with Grayson after the side won just one of their initial 15 Championship matches this season.

Because McKinlay was not under contract, Sunderland were powerless to stop him leaving when West Ham came calling.

A club statement read: "Sunderland AFC can confirm that Billy McKinlay has taken up a coaching role with West Ham United.



"The club would like to thank Billy for his efforts during his time on Wearside.



"Robbie Stockdale will continue as the club’s caretaker manager when the squad returns to training on Monday.



"A further announcement will be made in due course."

When Moyes’ appointment was first mooted, it had been expected that Phil Neville would be his assistant, but the former Manchester United, Everton and England player wants his next job in football to be a a manager rather than a No.2, and he is understood to be interested in the Stadium of Light job. Sunderland chief executive Martin Bain would prefer an experienced manager, however.

(Image: PA)

Sacking Grayson in the run-up to an international break has given Bain plenty of time to assess the field but ideally the club would have their new manager in place by now, allowing him time to impose his ideas on the squad ahead of an important match at the weekend. The Wearsiders have not won at the Stadium of Light in any competition since December 17, and ending that sequence will be vital to their chances of avoiding a second consecutive relegation. They are bottom of the Championship with more than a third of their league fixtures gone.

Aitor Karanka and Paul Heckingbottom have both been suggested as possible candidates for the job, though both have cause to be choosy. Karanka is settled in North Yorkshire so geographically the job would suit him but in leading Middlesbrough to promotion he showed himself to be a manager who demands a lot of those above as well as below him, and would therefore want reassurances that the circumstances at Sunderland would allow him to be successful. Moyes resigned in the summer when he decided that was not the case, and Derek McInnes declined an offer to leave Aberdeen before Grayson was offered the job.

Heckingbottom is a former Sunderland trainee but he is managing his home-town club Barnsley with some success, something he is unlikely to give up lightly.

With his connections to Bain through their time at Rangers, former Sunderland striker Ally McCoist is also a possibility, though his only management experience came with the Glasgow giants so the Championship would be new to him. Like Karanka, he is freely available, though.

Until that is resolved, the highly-rated Stockdale will have to go it alone, and the chances of the 37-year-old – who was promoted from the academy to the first-team staff by Sam Allardyce – taking the team against Millwall would appear to be growing by the day.