Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
The national journalist thinks that Sunderland are very different from Brighton and Brentford
Sunderland have attempted to emulate the likes of Brentford and Brighton in recent seasons - but there is one big difference between the two Premier League clubs and the Black Cats.
That’s the view of national reporter Daniel Storey, who believes that the size of Sunderland and the expectation that comes with the club given its history in the second tier creates an understandable impatience among the fanbase while pushing for promotion to the Premier League.
Sunderland have a clear recruitment strategy and have opened to buy young, nurture and then sell at a profit in recent seasons, with Ross Stewart and Jack Clarke being the first two high-profile cases. Indeed, the examples of Brighton and Brentford are often mentioned by fans as the gold standard, with both clubs having won promotion from the Championship before stabilising and competing in the Premier League.
The Echo has launched a new WhatsApp SAFC channel to bring the latest news, analysis and team & injury updates directly to your phone.Simply click this link to join our SAFC WhatsApp channel.
“They're not alone in doing that, which suggests that it is the right way to do it,” Storey said when asked about Sunderland’s youth-first recruitment model on The Echo’s Roar Podcast. “I think Sunderland are different to those clubs because there's both, you know, a historic level of success, and I'm talking decades and decades and decades ago, and also a relatively recent level of success.
“I think that changes the mindset within clubs and certainly changes the mindset of supporters. At both Brighton and Brentford, there was a recent history of being in the fourth tier. There was very much a blank canvas to build from. Supporter numbers weren't huge when that project began. Expectation wasn't huge. The difference with a club like Sunderland, I think, is that when you are fourth in the Championship, you can smell the Premier League and it inevitably makes you impatient.
“That's just human nature because you remember it, whereas Brighton and Brentford didn't have that. Brentford were able to lose a playoff final, for example, and it not cause everyone to lose their minds and it just be part of the process. They were very much process-driven clubs. I think Sunderland probably slightly struggle with that, but the principles are the same in terms of scouting well, recruiting well, buy low, develop well, sell high. They're the kind of five principles, five pillars of those projects, and Sunderland look to be doing that really well.
“At the moment, they've only really got to the development stage. I think that's fair to say because they've not felt they needed to sell one of those crown jewels, and that's the hardest bit of those projects is selling the players, accepting selling them and then reinvesting well because, you know, a club like Southampton tried this in the Premier League and were brilliant at it until they weren't and sold players and then eventually they bought badly and everything fell apart, and that's how it can happen. So I think I'd say Sunderland are only part way along that road, but they've not done anything wrong so far,” Storey concluded on the Black Cats.