Gus Poyet is on the brink of becoming the new Sunderland manager.

The 45-year-old Uruguayan and Black Cats owner Ellis Short are on the verge of agreeing a deal which would see him take over from the sacked Paolo Di Canio, with an announcement expected on Tuesday.

Poyet would become the sixth man to have held the post on a permanent basis inside the last five years and Short will hope he can bring the kind of long-term stability which has eluded his most recent predecessors.

There was no official comment from the club today, with sources indicating no announcement was imminent.

However, the odds on the South American, who has been a long-standing favourite to fill the vacancy, getting the nod tumbled dramatically overnight as Sunderland prepared to make a decisive move after spending a fortnight assessing their options.

They parted company with di Canio after just 175 days on September 22 following the irretrievable breakdown of the relationship between him and his players.

Senior professional development coach Kevin Ball was asked to take over the reins in the meantime and has presided over a 2-0 League Cup victory over Peterborough and much-improved performances in Premier League defeats by Liverpool and Manchester United.

Ball had asked to be considered himself, but as he took leave of journalists after his post-match press conference on Saturday evening there were hints that he did not expect to be conducting another in the near future.

Poyet has been out of work since his acrimonious departure from Championship Brighton during the summer, the club famously sacking him, he claimed, without his prior knowledge while he was live on air working as a BBC pundit.

He has made no secret of his interest in the job at the Stadium of Light, saying recently: “When I left Brighton, I thought I would be in England until at least January. I planned that, over the first matches of this season, I would pay a lot of attention to the teams I thought could be in trouble.

“Of course, I watch Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester, but there was a group of teams who, if they didn’t start well, I thought I could have a chance.

“I was watching Sunderland a lot. People were talking a lot about them in the summer because of Paolo and how many new players they had, so I have seen quite a lot of them.”

Poyet has no experience of managing in the English top flight, where he enjoyed huge success as a player with both Chelsea and Tottenham, and, like di Canio, would be an unknown quantity at that level.

However, with the Black Cats determined to maintain the “continental” structure they have put into place with Roberto de Fanti operating as director of football, he might prove more amenable than some potential candidates who have worked in more traditional set-ups.