SARTORI IN 7TH HEAVEN WITH CATS

NEW Sunderland investor Juan Sartori claims the League One outfit are the seventh biggest club in England.

The Uruguayan took a 20 per cent stake in the Black Cats last month and says he and owner Stewart Donald have an “aggressive” three-year plan to get back among the elite.

They are early promotion hopefuls after slashing the wage bill to £11million and dealing with historical debts.

Sartori (above), who has family links to AS Monaco, said: “Sunderland’s a huge club, the seventh largest in England, a club with a lot of history and a big following, and that’s what made it attractive.

“Seventeen months ago it was a club in the Premier League, now it’s starting the League One season, so definitely something went wrong there, something went very, very wrong.

“The biggest job we have to do now is to identify what are the problems and then a very strong turnaround to take the club back to where we, and most of the fans, believe it deserves to be, which is the Premier League.

“We’ve a two to threeyear plan which is very aggressive and is actually working pretty well. From a business point of view it’s turning and showing the results of the job we are doing.

“The task is big, to reverse what’s been going on for the last two or three years isn’t easy.”