However, Saturday’s resounding 4-0 victory over bottom-of-the-table West Brom eased the pressure on the club to make a quick decision, and it would be no surprise if Sbragia remained at the helm for next week’s trip to Barclays Premier League surprise package Hull.

Quinn was desperate not to do anything which would have affected the club’s preparations for a game which could yet represent a watershed in their season, and charged Sbragia with the task of buying him and his fellow directors another week in which to conclude their deliberations.

The Scot did his own chances of landing the job on a permanent basis little harm with the response he got from players who had been beset by a fatal lack of confidence during the latter days of Keane’s reign.

Quinn revealed in his programme notes that he has not ruled out Sbragia as a candidate, but the man himself admitted the role he has had for the last week or so had presented him with challenges he had not previously considered.

He said: “It is different. The manager’s job has really opened my eyes up a little bit about the other side of it.

“I’ve always just seen the coaching side and I probably didn’t realise the work that Roy did and what’s required.

“I am doing work at home, which I have probably never done, and thinking about coaching in general.

“Now I have got players to deal with, I have got loans to deal with, I have got the organisation of the training to deal with.”

Whatever Sbragia has done since taking over responsibility for team affairs, it has worked.

The Black Cats could have counted themselves slightly unfortunate not to have returned from his first game in charge at Manchester United last weekend with a point to show for a brave rearguard action.

But this time around, it was they who were causing the problems and West Brom simply could not cope.

Tony Mowbray’s side are in trouble principally because the do not score enough goals – they have managed just 12 in 17 league games to date.

The Baggies boss could only look on enviously as Kenwyne Jones and Djibril Cisse took his defence apart to pave the way for a victory which was effectively secured within 23 minutes of kick-off.

Jones is still working his way back to full fitness after the knee injury which forced him to miss the first two months or so of the season, but he was more than sharp enough to head home Andy Reid’s 22nd-minute cross and then stab home from close range seconds later as Cisse wrought havoc down the right.

Reid, probably the smallest man on the pitch, headed home a third six minutes before the break, and when Cisse converted a penalty two minutes after the restart following substitute Roman Bednar’s handball, the trauma of Keane’s departure and what has followed was all but forgotten.

Skipper for the day Kieran Richardson said: “Everyone on the pitch was unbelievable. It was coming. We were due a big win and we got it.

“But we have got Hull next week and that’s going to be a hard game for us away from home.

“We need points to climb up the table, and it’s going to be a busy period for us over Christmas.”

The win, just Sunderland’s second in nine league games, ended a run of four successive defeats at the Stadium of Light and lifted them out of the bottom three last night.

It was the first time they had scored four goals in a game since they beat Luton 5-0 on the final day of their triumphant Coca-Cola Championship campaign in May last year, and the first on Wearside since they defeated Southend 4-0 three months earlier.

The last time they managed to find the back of the net four times in the Premier League was in a 4-2 win at Chelsea on March 17, 2001, 176 top-flight matches ago, and they last achieved that feat on home soil eight games earlier against Ipswich on New Year’s Day that same year.