Steve Howey has suggested that Sunderland will have already looked at players they want to sign this summer and will act accordingly now they know what league they're in for next season, speaking to Football League World exclusively.

The Black Cats missed out on promotion once again in League One with play-off heartbreak hitting at the semi-final stage with Lincoln City dumping them out.

The plan next year, then, has to be to try and achieve one of those top two spots and get the job done without needing the lottery that is the play-offs.

Indeed, now they know they are in League One they will have an idea of which targets they can go after and Howey has suggested that Lee Johnson and his staff will have drawn up two lists, one for if they go up and one for it they stay down, in terms of summer options.

"You've got to have the right players in the right positions. It starts with Johnson and his staff recruiting the right players," he told Football League World exclusively.

"I'm pretty sure they would have, like all the managers, looked at players before the end of the season and thought about what happens if we go up or what happens if we stay down? And then we take it from there."

Certainly, Sunderland will be looking to add to their squad as much as they can now and finally get themselves out of League One after a few years in the third tier.

Fans will be back in the Stadium of Light next season, too, and they'll be eager to push their side on.