SUNDERLAND’S new executive director Charlie Methven has outlined how he wants the club to be “ferocious and brutal” to ensure everything is done to secure the talent to turn things around at the Stadium of Light.

In an interview with Sunderland fanzine A Love Supreme, in which Methven also stated that he has always found Newcastle United to be a “rather arrogant club”, he has insisted that there is going to be greater focus on recruiting young talent despite relegation from League One.

Sunderland’s drop into the third tier had raised question marks over whether they would cut costs that could lead to its academy losing the prestigious Category One status. That, though, is not in the thoughts of new owner Stewart Donald.

Head of recruitment Neale McDermott, who is losing his job following the takeover, is also the head of academy recruitment, a role which will need to be filled as part of being a Category One club.

But the indications are that Methven and Donald will be doing everything they can to make sure that Sunderland’s academy builds on the success of recent years by making sure more talent reaches the first team in the future.

Methven said: “One thing that’s been noticeable is that there’s been no budget to poach — I use that word snidely - there’s been no budget to bring in other young players from other parts of the country or even locally at a slightly later age.

“When you’re a Category One academy, I’m afraid you have to be brutal. You have to use your Category One status to go to see young players who are going places and tell them that your future is going to be brighter with you. ‘This is the placed that turned out the England captain, England’s number one goalkeeper, that’s where you want to be right? You don’t to be at a Category Two or Three academy … you want to be at number one. You want to be the next England captain.’

“So, we’re going to be ferocious, brutal, and tough for Sunderland, because we believe that it’s worth fighting for. And you’ve got to fight!

“This isn’t going to be a soft touch. Sometimes people will find Stewart and me abrasive, I can’t say otherwise, that is going to happen, but we’re going be abrasive on behalf of Sunderland Association Football Club.

“And the people who are going to feel the force of that abrasion, 98 per cent of the time it will be agents, other clubs, people taking the ****. Occasionally we’ll get it wrong and it’ll be someone inside the club, but we’ll find them afterwards and make up, it’ll be fine.”

Methven’s straight-talking approach came across in the interview, and that extended to when he was asked about his affinity for Sunderland dating back years because of a link to his boyhood team through former manager Denis Smith.

Rather than just focus on that, the media and public relations expert turned on Newcastle – something Sunderland supporters are sure to enjoy.

Methven, from Oxfordshire, said: “Yeah, he (Smith) was kind of the link between the two clubs. He was a great manager for both clubs I think, and a great man, I absolutely love Denis.

“So it’s (Sunderland) always been a club that I’ve been somewhat fond of from an early age — for some reason I’ve always had an antipathy towards Newcastle. I mean that wasn’t a determining factor in this, but it does mean I’ve always had a slight soft spot for Sunderland because I’ve always found Newcastle to be a rather arrogant club.

“They seem to think that they’re special, and they don’t understand that every club is special. From an outsider’s perspective I feel that from the North-East clubs, at Sunderland and Middlesbrough there’s much mutual appreciation from other clubs, but at Newcastle there’s little appreciation for or from other clubs.”

Read the full interview with A Love Supreme here