It was a costly decision to head over to the Tyneside to celebrate Newcastle’s Obafemi Martins’ 24th birthday party for Sunderland’s Djibril Cisse, El - Hadji Diouf and Pascal Chimbonda.

After an internal investigation of the trio being spotted out and about until the early hours of Friday, just 48 hours before Sunderland’s 5 - 0 loss at Chelsea, Keane laid down a financial punishment.

Via DailyMail 

Keane said: ‘We hope players behave in a certain way they have had a fair hearing and its has been dealt with.’

Texas businessman Ellis Short bought a significant stake in Sunderland, the English Premier League told The Associated Press on Friday. Short is co-founder of Dallas-based private equity group Lone Star Funds. In August, he acquired more than 30 percent of the consortium that owns the club in northeast England.

Image via Art

West Ham’s Alan Curbishley has claimed that they have accepted an 8 Million Pound bid from Roy Keane’s Sunderland for the services of 23 year old Anton Ferdinand.

The 6 foot centerback has appeared over 135 times for the Hammers in the Premiership and with his refusal to sign a contract extension, West Ham is seemingly forced to make the move now before potentially losing him for free.

The board have accepted the bid - he’s not renegotiated his contract - and the decision was taken out of my hands.

‘I don’t know where Anton is in terms of signing for Sunderland - but once the club accept the bid it moves on.”image via Img 

UPDATE - It didn’t take long for Djibril Cisse to make his mark on his return to the Barclay’s Premiership with Roy Keane’s Sunderland as they beat Tottenham 2-1.

“Cisse has got that physical presence and the pace and we had a feeling amongst the staff that if he got on he could do a bit of damage to Tottenham and he certainly did”, said head boss Keane who gave Cisse his debut 65 minutes into the match.

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Roy Keane and Sunderland have seemingly captured one of the most intriguing players of the 2008 summer transfer window in oft-injured French striker Djibril Cisse on loan from Ligue1 side Marseille.

Cisse, who’s first stint in the Barclay’s Premiership with Liverpool started brightly before snapping his tibula and fibula after being tackled only 19 games into the season at Blackburn, fell out with Rafa Benitez over the Spaniard’s insistence over playing Cisse in a wide role instead of his preferred striker position, which led to his loan and subsequent sale to Marseille.

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