Alex Neil delivers fresh verdict on recruitment model Sunderland are looking to emulate

The two clubs will face off this week in the FA Cup fifth round before Stoke City travel to Sunderland in the Championship on Saturday marking Neil’s return to the Stadium of Light since leaving the club earlier this season.

Sunderland are looking to emulate the likes of Brighton and Brentford in the field of recruitment with young players bought to be developed and sold at a profit. Neil, however, departed Wearside to link up with Stoke City despite the Black Cats’ exciting plans.

"Of course,” said Neil, when asked if Brighton were the example for Stoke to follow. “If you look at where they were when I played against them as Norwich manager when the owner Tony Bloom had Chris Hughton as manager and they were fighting relegation (in the Championship), they had the big striker Chris O’Grady up front, put the ball up to him and worked off his feet. You thought, ‘All right, they’re a Championship team.’

“They’re now signing players for millions of pounds and sending them straight out on loan. That’s a ridiculous thing to be able to do.

"I think from where they were then to where they are now is a remarkable rise. The infrastructure is incredible. They didn’t have a stadium at one point, playing at the Withdean, and now they have a state-of-the-art training ground with assets coming out of their ears in terms of selling players.

“The one key asset which has allowed them to do that is one, getting promoted and two, recruitment. (Leandro) Trossard they bought for £13m, sold him for £21m; Marc Curcurella they bought for £15m, sold him to Chelsea for more than £50m. There are so many different stories. They knocked back about £80m for Moises Caicedo, the midfield player.

“They’ve got players they can sell for hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds now and they go and get players like (Jeremy) Sacramento and (Julio) Enciso from South America and Tony Bloom has obviously got algorithms for how they recruit and it’s remarkable how far they’ve risen.”