Sunderland are chasing AZ Alkmaar goal machine Jozy Altidore.

The Shields Gazette says Paolo Di Canio believes the 23-year-old can be a major success in the Premier League second time around.

Altidore, a teenage prodigy in his home country, was raw, by his own admission, when he played out an unremarkable loan spell at Hull City in the 2009-10 season on loan from Villarreal.

But last season he smashed Clint Dempsey's single-campaign goals record for an American player in Europe, (23, which Dempsey set the previous season at Fulham), when he scored 31 goals for AZ.

Di Canio would hope to get his man for as little as £5m as AZ look to cash in.