Youngster tells it like it is: 'Sunderland have a lot of money but they don't use it properly'

As Wearside consoles itself that losing a home grown superstar-in-the-making has been recompensed with a wad of cash, another academy product has stuck the boot in to remind us that Sunderland will just waste it anyway.

£30 million for Jordan Pickford - that's a whole load of money. But 18-year-old youngster Joel Asoro has been telling the media in Sweden that the Black Cats aren't really very good when it comes to spending wisely.

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Asoro is in Poland preparing to watch tomorrow night's clash between his Swedish teammates and England from the stands as he's banned for the opening game in the U21 European Championships.

The Sunderland forward is one of Wearside's two representatives at the tournament along with Poland goalkeeper Max Stryjek after Pickford's sale to Everton, but following his recent claims that he will leave the Stadium of Light if he can't play regular first team football, Asoro is in no mood for sugar-coating his assessment of the state of the Black Cats, telling Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet:

Sunderland have a lot of money, it's just that they do not use it properly.

And he's not wrong of course. A decade in the richest league in world football and Sunderland have nothing much to show for it. Hopelessly in debt and relegated to the second-tier with an entire first team who want to leave, the new manager will have a canny task on his hands.

But clearly warming to the subject, academy product Asoro - who joined the club when he was 16-years-old - had more to say on the subject:

I read somewhere that Real Madrid received 80-million pounds when it won the Champions League and so it is that Sunderland have received 93-million pounds. It's crazy. Why do they not have the money? There are very many who begin to whine about it.

And 'whine' we may, but it's perhaps not the place of a junior member of the squad to be passing assessments on the economic performance of the club he's employed by. A crash course in Sunderland's accounts may be of benefit for the young man.

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Despite only playing ten minutes of league football last season, Asoro hinted last week that he's prepared to leave the Stadium of Light this summer to pursue first team action elsewhere.

Whilst the forward is regularly rated as a 'hot prospect', those who watch the Sunderland Under-23s have on occasion wondered at that tag, but Asoro has found himself in the midst of headlines in the last few days suggesting he's a target for Arsenal as well as the likes of Liverpool and Southampton.

Pacey and exciting in flashes, the youngster rates his speed as his biggest attribute:

I think I'm really really fast. I have not done the speed test [100 metres] since I was 14 but then I ran in eleven seconds dead.

Asoro moved to England in 2015 after being targeted by a host of European clubs. He chose Sunderland as the best place for him to develop - at a club with top facilities whilst removed from the harsh glare of the spotlight at some of the 'bigger' names in English football.

The young forward has been rated as 'one to watch' at the 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship which begins tomorrow.

And despite his bold claims the Sunderland youngster reveals he's a mummy's-boy at heart, rating Mrs Asoro as the biggest influence on his life:

My mother - it is she who has accompanied me. Without her I would not have enjoyed my career at all. She lives with me in England and is with me everywhere I go. I do not know what I would do without her.

Bless.