Sunderland’s latest shirt sponsor, the online-betting company Dafabet has announced to its customers that the Black Cats are odds-on to go down after defeats in their opening two Premier League games.

Sunderland striker Steven Fletcher Sunderland and midfielder Sebastian Larsson look at each other in despair after their 4-2 loss to Leicester City in round one.

And according to reports in Italy, Sunderland have made a firm bid to sign de Guzman on a season-long loan with a view to a permanent deal.

Midfielder de Guzman had been on the verge of joining French side Marseille after being limited to a bit-part role with Napoli since joining the Serie A outfit last summer.

To make matters worse, Sunderland have been given odds of 1000/1 to make the top four, while fellow relegation battlers Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford are just 500/1.

However, he appears to have a genuine enthusiasm about the role of the underdog in English football, where the bigger boys don’t necessarily always get it their own way.

Speaking to the club’s official website, Ball said that Watmore “absolutely” performed well when he was subbed on with 20 minutes to play, adding that “he displayed passion, enthusiasm and quality” in his short appearance, plus “he’s scored a goal at the end of the game“.

“It is interesting going back to when Duncan first arrived at the club; we said to him that during your first six months you need to show us the reasons why we wanted you to come to the club, and he not only did it but did it well”.

“They’ve got plenty of good players there and they play well together, but we are very hungry for that and it doesn’t matter who (we face)”. We had a good team meeting, it was good to talk.