I’m quite happy to bring in young players with the right support

JACK Ross says he is not “scared” to load his team with younger players next season – but they will need the right support.

The mood music of Sunderland’s new regime is that the club will look to support their top-rated academy and tap into it next season.

That was a process that started towards the end of Ellis Short’s regime, and with his successor Stewart Donald not in the same league when it comes to wealth, and needing to cut his cloth accordingly.

Fortunately, though, the Black Cats have an academy which has produced England’s first choice goalkeeper at the World Cup (Jordan Pickford) and Liverpool’s European Cup final captain (Jordan Henderson), as well as a host of other players who have made the switch from the youth team to firstteam dressing rooms at the Academy of Light in recent seasons.

George Honeyman, Lynden Gooch, Joel Asoro, Josh Maja, Duncan Watmore, Ethan Robson, Luke Molyneux, Denver Hume and Bali Mumba all played senior football last season.

“I had a team last year that won the league consistently having probably five regular starters that were 21 and under,” Ross pointed out to the Wise Men Say podcast.

“They were good players and they just developed a mentality that they were used to winning games. But they were heavily supported by players in key areas that had been over the course and had played at English Championship level or Scottish Premiership level, knew the game and thrived under that responsibility and fed off the energy of those players.

“The young ones should give you energy and dynamism... along with that hunger to try and impress and progress their careers.”