'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone,' as the song goes. Sunderland might not exactly have paved paradise and put up a parking lot, but they have allowed the best manager/head coach the club had had in years to slip through their grasp.
Plenty of managers have come and gone on Wearside in recent years - far too many, in fact - but normally they are sacked or resign. Alex Neil is the first to leave for another job since Sam Allardyce left to become England manager in 2016, and the first to be lured away by another club since Jimmy Adamson quit to take over at Leeds United in October 1978.
The Black Cats confirmed this afternoon that Neil has been given permission to talk to Stoke City about their vacant manager's job, but even as that statement was released the Scot was making his way around the Academy of Light and saying his goodbyes before heading for the Potteries to complete the paperwork. His mind was made up. He was off.
