Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has moved to assure fans that their transfer plans are now heating up.
"It's been hectic - the phone's been on all day long," he told The Journal. "I turned it off for a luncheon the other day and when I came back to it there were 44 missed calls. But we're in there fighting.
Sunderland signed six players on August 31 last year but have not been the magnet for top talent this summer many fans were hoping.
"We probably had it a bit easy in the Championship transfer window," Quinn admitted. "We had a lot of players who really wanted to come.
"It's a little bit more difficult now with agents hawking their players around at the top level. We've found it interesting but we're getting more confident every day and we think it will come right.
"Nobody can promise anything in football in terms of results, it's stupid. All I've ever said is we needed a bit of time - as it turned out Roy didn't need that much time! - to structure this club properly.
"We feel it's starting to come right and the club's getting bigger all the time. But if I can promise one thing it's that we'll work our socks off.