SUNDERLAND'S current crop of young talent are doing the business on the pitch, which is playing on the mind of manager Lee Johnson. 

The Black Cats recruitment model has seen them bring in fresh young blood over the summer. The likes of Callum Doyle and Dennis Cirkin have impressed in the starting eleven, Dan Neil has taken his chance in the first-team having come through the academy ranks at the club while Niall Huggins, Thorben Hoffman, Leon Dajaku and Nathan Broadhead remain integral parts of the squad.

Meanwhile, Elliot Embleton is still at the tender age of 22 and Denver Hume, who is still recovering from long term injury, has slightly more experience at he age of 23. 

Clearly, Sunderland's new recruitment policy has been orchestrated with a combination of contributions from the management staff and Sporting Director Kristjaan Speakman in which the younger talent may well be sold on for profit and prolong the long-term sustainability of the club.

That being said, Johnson admits he's thought about how soon that may happen and whether that would cause some level of disruption to the team.

The boss said: “I get scared on this one (talking about the potential of Sunderland’s young players) because it’s happened to me before where we’ve been a victim of our own success.

“At Bristol City, we sold nearly £100m of players. I can smell assets. If you sign people with a good attitude, and you have a good set of staff like we have, then you can really improve players pretty quickly.

“I’m already starting to worry about it, if I’m honest with you, because I’ve seen it before. I’d almost rather they had a couple of bad games and send everybody off the radar!

“A lot of hard work went into getting them, from a lot of people. Look at a player like Dennis Cirkin, I don’t even feel he’s had 15 or 20 per cent tapped into his true potential.

“What would we could do with him, and what he could do with himself, is frightening. Niall’s (Huggins) the same. Then obviously you’ve got (Callum) Doyle, Dan Neil. It’s exciting times.”

Sunderland's youngsters will get the chance to impress yet again when Bolton Wanderers travel to the Stadium of Light this Saturday.