Cats’ youth recruitment is even more vital under cap
their rivals. To an extent, it did. Lynden Gooch and George Honeyman became mainstays of the side, while Josh Maja's goals may well have fired the club to promotion had it not been for his untimely sale in the January window.
By and large, though, the Academy of Light has not been the force that it should have been.
Too many talented players left before agreeing professional terms, and the reinvestment back into the U18 and U23 groups that have been most affected has been minimal.
The salary cap rules, without a doubt, do not benefit Sunderland.
The Black Cats opposed them and said that while they support sustainability, the rules put in place are about levelling the playing field.
It's a sentiment shared by Parkinson, who has said that the EFL should simply have tightened up and better policed their previous rules, which limit clubs (at least in theory) to spending 60% of their turnover on wages.
Yet the savings Sunderland should allow them to address the deficiencies in their upper-age groups and offer a unique opportunity to bring the first team closer to the academy.
Particularly in the 'new normal' clubs are facing, it surely makes more sense to see the U23 side as a 'B' team, or a reserve unit.
One that can offer match practice for senior players, and an opportunity for youngsters to impress.
The latter point is particularly key when it looks as if Parkinson will be taking a smaller squad into a brutal schedule that is packed with midweek cup and league fixtures, particularly in the opening months of the season.
To that end, it was of interest to see the club take Morgan Feeney on trial last week.
The central defender was released by Everton and while he has limited senior experience, he has represented England at youth level.
It remains to be seen whether Parkinson and his staff will be sufficiently impressed to offer the defender a deal, but it's an approach more generally that makes sense.
Sunderland are still without an academy manager and that will be a crucial appointment as the club seeks to reverse two damaging years of player departures.
A first round of interviews was held last week, and so the expectation is that an appointment will be made before the new campaign.
In the interim, head of academy recruitment Ged McNamee has been given the green light to begin work on his list of targets and the fruits of that were first seen last weekend, when the club announced deals for Sam Wilding, Vinnie Steels and Bobby Beaumont.
They will be the first of many and quite simply, they will have to be.
The squad currently looks threadbare, particularly with Bali Mumba having joined Norwich City and with Benji Kimpioka's future still very much unresolved.
The salary cap rules pose a major challenge for the Black Cats this season and the increased pressure (if that were even possible) to win promotion will always bring the risk of encouraging the kind of short-term thinking that has proved so damaging over the years.
It is imperative that the rules, however challenging for the club as a whole, allow some of the damage of the last two years in the Academy to be repaired.
That would go a long way to improving the club's longterm prospects.
And done well, it might just solve one or two headaches for Parkinson over the course of what is sure to be a bruising season in the hunt for promotion.