Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn insists there's no chance of appointing a technical director above Roy Keane.

"Arsene Wenger didn't have a technical guy telling him what to do," he told The Journal. "Arsenal trusted him and (then-vice-chairman) David Dein deserves huge credit for that. In a similar way we have someone in Roy who we can assist and nurture along. He deserves that.

"It would be a great travesty if Roy got us to this lovely area and we suddenly launched in technical directors or whatever they are called. If Roy needs assistance and tells us who he is getting, that will be the end of it."

Keane, however, is just a small but very important piece of Quinn's jigsaw.

"My job is somewhere between passing information between the shareholders and providing structures," he says. "I see myself as being at a crossroad between the fans, the playing side and Roy, the owners and shareholders, and the overall direction of the Premier League.

"We understand this club is nothing without community interaction. We've won one senior trophy since the war so it has to be built on something other than the success of the club, that's obvious! We are striving to be a (proper) Premiership club and if we don't take that on the journey and abandon our position in the community, it's a hollow victory anyway.

"The engine's running. It's got some petrol in it and it's well oiled. It's up to Roy to drive it.

"This football club is a beacon. We have to be a bit different because of the big finances in the Premiership. The game has changed in the last couple of years. If I showed you the plan I showed the owners two-and-a-half years ago there's noughts missing, literally.

"I invite people to the boardroom and they ask, 'Are you sure? I've got jeans on,' but I want them to see it. This is our football club, we're not here to lock ourselves away from you."