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Sunderland could be set to take advantage of Aston Villa’s failure to return to the Premier League by bringing Tony Coton back to Wearside.

A broken leg ended the goalkeeper’s career months after he made a £600,000 move from Manchester United to the Black Cats in 1996.

But now Coton has been linked with a return to provide much-needed knowledge of English football to the club’s new management.

Coton has been working as Aston Villa’s chief scout, but with the West Midlands club having to seriously scale back after losing to Fulham in the Championship play-off final, he is expected to leave, and it is though he may move to Sunderland.

One of Coton’s colleagues in Villa’s recruitment department was Richard Hill, who has since moved to the Stadium of Light in an unspecified role.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

Jack Ross has been given complete control over transfers after being named manager by new owner Stewart Donald, but he admitted on his first day his knowledge of the division he now finds himself in is not yet where it needs to be.

Ross played in English football’s third tier for a season with Hartlepool United, but that was 13 years ago and the rest of his career has been spent in Scotland. The same is true of his assistant, James Fowler.

Head of recruitment Neale McDermott left the club upon Ross’ arrival to give the 41-year-old the free hand he wanted.

When his playing career ended, Coton went into coaching, but a serious knee injury ended his time as the Red Devils goalkeeping coach in 2008, after ten years at Old Trafford. He was Wigan Athletic’s chief scout in 2014-15, and initially had a specific goalkeeping brief at Villa Park, before widening his role into that of chief scout.

Villa had gambled financially on winning promotion back to the top flight at the end of their second season back in the Championship, but missing out will lead to major cutbacks if they are to fall in line with the Football League’s financial fair play regulations.

John Terry has already left the club, and is set to be reunited with his former Chelsea team-mate Frank Lampard at Derby County. A firesale of high-profile, high-earning players can be expected and there are doubts about the future of manager Steve Bruce.

Sunderland will need a huge revamp of their squad after back-to-back relegations, and ever since Donald’s £40m buyout of the club was rubber-stamped on May 20, they have been a club in a hurry.

“If I’m being fairly pragmatic I’d imagine there will be a high turnover of players here,” Ross admitted.

Despite mainly being linked with Scottish-based players so far, he also said he is keen to bring in players with experience of the division given he and his squad have so little.

“I have to learn that as quickly as I can (about League One),” he said. “If you back yourself, you can do it. There is a huge amount of information out there.”

Although Villa have largely been shopping in a different market to the one Sunderland find themselves in, Coton could bring much-needed knowledge.

Amongst the whirlwind of activity since Donald took charge was the appointment of former Eastleigh director of football Hill, whose management experience has exclusively come at non-league level, but who has been on coaching staffs at Villa (under Brian Little), Wycombe Wanderers, Queens Park Rangers, Northampton Town, Gillingham, Tranmere Rovers, Reading and Swindon Town.

Donald was keen to stress Hill will not be involved in first-team matters, but he could be influential in bringing Coton back to the club.