Steve Howey believes Sunderland must head into the transfer window in the right frame of mind ahead of their fourth season in League One.
Lee Johnson's side are preparing for a massive summer rebuild after having blown promotion to the Championship.
The Black Cats are expected to be pretty active in the transfer market given the release of seven experienced players, but the club have opted for a new data-led approach to recruitment.
There's been a huge rebuild behind the scenes following the completion of Kyril Louis-Dreyfus ' takeover on Wearside. The appointment of Kristjaan Speakman as Sporting Director got the ball rolling, while most recently Stuart Harvey was appointed as Head of Recruitment.
One previous criticism of the Black Cats has been their naïve activity in the transfer market. Will Grigg was brought to the club for a whopping £3million and hasn't lived up to his price tag.
When Johnson arrived as head coach he said the club needed to be smarter in terms of recruitment and that has been echoed by Steve Howey.
Speaking to Football League World, Howey said: "There is money there. But again, you don’t want to be throwing it away stupidly and being daft about it.
“I think it needs to be looked at and again, I can’t stress it enough, they need to focus more on recruiting the players that they need.
"I think Lee Johnson will be backed but it’s not going to be a case off them having the money and going back to the Championship.
“That would be the silly way to go about it and I think it has to be measured and it has to be calculated if they’re going to finally go back up.”
