Alex Neil has brought a crop of youngsters to Portugal to work alongside his senior squad during Sunderland's pre-season training camp. The Black Cats flew out yesterday for a week-long stay on the Algarve, which will combine warm-weather training with two friendlies against Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers, and Jose Mourinho's Roma.
Sunderland's entire first-team squad has made the trip, including new defensive signing Daniel Ballard who completed his move from Arsenal to Wearside last week. But with so many players leaving Sunderland, either at the end of their contracts or because their loan period had expired, Neil's squad is short on numbers and that has meant half-a-dozen players from the club's development squad have travelled and will have an opportunity to catch the eye.
With the departures of Lee Burge and the on-loan Thorben Hoffmann over the summer, Anthony Patterson is Sunderland's only senior goalkeeper at present, and that has meant 21-year-old ex-Manchester United youngster Jacob Carney - who was a regular for the U23s last term, and also played one EFL Trophy game, and was included on the bench in the league a handful of times - and 18-year-old academy graduate Adam Richardson have travelled to work alongside Patterson under goalkeeping coach Mark Prudhoe.
