Alan Browne on Sunderland transfers and Enzo Le Fee

ALAN Browne believes Sunderland’s hierarchy deserve huge credit for their shrewd and brave recruitment and willingness to put their trust in young players.

Browne is something of an outlier when it comes to Sunderland signings, with the midfielder pursued last summer as the Black Cats went in search of some much-needed experience to add to their ranks.

But the vast majority of additions in the past couple of years have been exciting young players, and Browne says Sunderland are now reaping the rewards of their bold approach.

“The recruitment has been really good and the trust throughout the club to give young players a chance and let them go and flourish,” said the midfielder.

“You can see that when you’re in the building, how important it is to them. Obviously the backing from the owners, I think now is a really good time for the club.

“There’s everything in place to take that next step and it’s down to the players now to go and do that out on the pitch.”

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When it comes to Sunderland signings, nobody has impressed Browne more than January loan arrival Enzo Le Fee.

“He’s got that wow factor about him,” said Browne.

“He obviously had his setback as well but he’s back now and hopefully he can build his minutes because I think he’ll be really, really important for us coming into the end of the season.

“He’s different. I think, like you said, you can see that as soon as he comes on [at Norwich]. His little touches and his confidence on the ball is something that we probably don’t have.

“Well, we do but not to that standard and I don’t think any team in this league has that.”

Sunderland secured a top six finish thanks to their 0-0 draw at Norwich, but Browne echoed the thoughts of boss Regis Le Bris in saying it’s crucial the Black Cats don’t now take their foot off the gas in the remaining five games of the season.

He said: “We’ve cemented the play-offs. There’s obviously a slight chance of the automatics.

“We’ll keep fighting until the end, but I think there’s no pressure on us. We need to go and play and build confidence going into some important games.”

Sunderland weren’t at their best at Carrow Road on Tuesday night but still ground out another draw to extend their unbeaten run to three games. The Black Cats have also kept three successive clean sheets, with Browne playing a key role in that spell covering at right-back.

He said: “I’m just happy to be back out there, to be honest, getting a run of games and getting more minutes under my belt.

“I think we probably showed Norwich too much respect early on.

“Once we started to get after them we dominated a bit more possession, got our foot on the ball. In the second half, we just tried to play with a bit of freedom. That was the message at half-time.

“It probably took us a bit too long in the first half to figure out the way they were playing and we just had to make a few tweaks in the middle of the first half.

“I think we did grow into it and towards the end, we probably looked the most likely to score. I know they had a couple of half chances, but I think we were really in the ascendancy and we could have nicked it at the end, but it wasn’t to be.”