The Black Cats will be letting Will Buckley, Liam Bridcutt, Charis Mavrias, Valentin Roberge and Emanuele Giaccherini go.

The Sunderland Echo is reporting that The Black Cats will be sending five players out of the exit door at the club before the transfer window shuts on Tuesday evening – in an attempt to curb the wage bill at the club.

The report names the five players as Will Buckley, Liam Bridcutt, Charis Mavrias, Valentin Roberge and Emanuele Giaccherini – the latter set to finalise a protracted loan move to Bologna this week.

Buckley and Bridcutt both played under former boss Gus Poyet at Brighton, which is why they were snapped up. The pair cost, according to Sky Sports and BBC respectively, £2.5 million and £3 million each.

Mavrias cost them £2.5 million, according to the Daily Mail and Roberge was a free transfer.

Giaccherini however, according to the BBC, cost them £6.5 million.

Altogether that means the five players that Sunderland want to get rid of before the window shuts on Tuesday cost the club around £14.5 million and all five have had little or no impact at the Stadium of Light and are likely to all leave at a loss to the club, with the exception of Roberge.

It just goes to show the poor spending philosophy at Sunderland in recent times.

In other news, Owen Hargreaves has just made a really exciting claim about Liverpool's Thiago