The Black Cats could lost four of his five loan players at the end of the season as Danny Welbeck, Nedum Onuoha, Sulley Muntari and John Mensah could all return to their clubs.
He said: “At the start of the season I wanted to have a squad of 24 or 25. I thought it should be ample and my view hasn’t changed.
“I also went down the route of putting a young squad together and, again, I still think that is the right route for the club to go.
“We left ourselves a bit short in the striking department, so we have to learn from that.
“I wouldn’t say it was another rebuilding project needed, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out we have five loan players from a squad of 23 and we could lose a number of them.
“We’d have to be talking about seven or eight signings. We probably need three strikers to start with, and then we could be looking at needing to replace four of our loan players just to keep numbers as they are.
“Nedum has been a big player for us and I’d love to make him permanent.”
