WHEN Alex Rae joined Sunderland as a player back in 1996, things were very different on Wearside. They were a top-flight club for one, despite still playing out of the antiquated Roker Park. That season brought relegation, but the move into the Stadium of Light in the next campaign unlocked the huge potential of the club, and within two years they were playing to packed houses at the top level of the English game.

It has pained the former Rangers and Wolves midfielder to see the fall from grace that his old club have suffered in recent times, with a second successive relegation meaning they will be playing League One football next season.

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Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to recover though, and with a takeover complete and the club’s debt wiped clean, Rae believes it may be the perfect time for any manager to come into the Stadium of Light.

That man may very well be Jack Ross, who succeeded Rae at St Mirren, but whoever it may be that takes the reins, he senses that the Black Cats may be ready to roar again.

“Sunderland is massive,” Rae said. “I absolutely loved playing my football there. When I played for them we had sell-outs of 49,000-odd, so it was a great time.

“The amenities and the facilities that the club have are second to none in England. The academy they have, the Academy of Light, has about 19 pitches, so it’s state of the art stuff in Scottish terms when you compare it to Lennoxtown or Murray Park. They’ve invested some of the Premier League money into that facility, and it’s fantastic.

“It’s a great time for a new manager to go in there. There’s a new takeover, there will be fresh investment. They have lost their way in the last six to eight years really, clinging on to Premier League football for a while and changed the manager so many times. They had a bad model in terms of racking up debt. It’s a clean slate now, and it’s an opportunity.

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“When you see Sunderland in a division like that, without being disrespectful to the other sides, you would expect them to get out of it. You see some of the other teams that have been there like Leeds United, Norwich City with Paul Lambert, Blackburn Rovers last season, and Sunderland are as big – if not bigger – than all of them.

“With the fanbase they have got, it wouldn’t take a lot to get them going again.”

And it is the fans that could be key to their revival, according to Rae.

“They had 20-25000 last season even when things were going really badly, so if they can get it going then it wouldn’t take a lot to get them on the right track again,” he said.

“When I joined the club they were in the Premiership, as it was then, and they were getting 18-19,000 at Roker Park. We got relegated on 40 points that year, but the following season in the Championship we were getting 38,000 in the new stadium. I couldn’t believe it.

“Going into the 40,000-seater stadium, I was wondering where the other 20,000 fans were coming from, but literally overnight they were out in their numbers. So, the fanbase is very much there for whoever can get them going in the right direction.”

Supporters may well be the lifeblood of any club, but Rae knows that fans alone cannot turn Sunderland around.

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While former chairman Ellis Short wrote off the club’s debt upon leaving, Rae is wary of the costs that may still hamper the new boss at the club, and how much they may eat into the £36million parachute payment they will receive. Not least the massive wage bill that will surely have to be reduced.

“The expectations would be that they should automatically be favourites because of the money that has been promised,” he said. “The chairman was on record last week as saying that they are going to have the biggest budget in the division, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.

“I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as we might think. The debt was taken away by the chairman, but it’s still to be ascertained whether the parachute payment for the next two years will be taken by the old chairman to offset some of the debt.

“If they have got the parachute payments, then they will be in prime position to bounce back up, but if not, then they will still have players like Lee Cattermole, Lamina Kone and Jack Rodwell on big contracts. There’s guys in there earning fortunes, so it’s about,who are they going to keep, can they afford to pay these guys off, do they want to be there?

“There’s so many factors to consider, so it won’t be the case of going in and straight away everything will be hunky dory.

“Someone like Rodwell hasn’t featured in the last couple of years, so how do you get them off the wage bill unless you pay them off? That eats into any budget you have earmarked.

“So, there is still work to do. I think it’s a big job for whoever goes in, but if you can get the right players in and get the club going, then the sky is the limit with Sunderland.”