Phil Parkinson has told Will Grigg to move to the North East if he wants to shake off his misfit tag and stake a claim for a place in the Sunderland side next season.
Grigg joined the Black Cats from Wigan Athletic in January 2019 in a £4m deadline-day deal but, despite arriving with a reputation as a proven League One goalscorer, he has endured a miserable time on Wearside, finding the net only eight times in 49 appearances in all competitions.
And in a recent interview with The Athletic, Grigg admitted the switch has not worked out, said he should not have left the Latics when he did, and left the door open for a move away this summer.
Sunderland boss Parkinson has not given up on the 29-year-old, but he has advised him to swap his Midlands base for the North-East, and made it clear that it will be up to him to prove he is worthy of a place in the team when pre-season training eventually gets under way.
"Will is a player who has been mentioned at every single press conference since I have been at the club because of the size of the fee and the expectations when he came to the club," Parkinson told BBC Radio Newcastle's Total Sport.
"He's our player, he has to come back in pre-season and prove that he's ready to stake a claim for a place in the team.
"I've spoken to him in the last week or so, he has to get his personal situation sorted out – try and get up into the area so he is not commuting up and down as much – and I really feel that is important for Will to progress forward and give himself the best chance to justify the reasons why he was brought to the club."
Grigg was brought in to replace youngster Josh Maja who left Sunderland to join French side Bordeaux in the same transfer window.
And as the Netflix documentary Sunderland 'Til I Die showed, Sunderland owner Stewart Donald went against the advice of then-manager Jack Ross to pay well over the odds for Grigg.
If he had hit the ground running, the fee would have soon been forgotten but instead Grigg was unable to fill Maja's shoes, and that was one of the factors that saw Sunderland miss out on automatic promotion, with the season ultimately ending in disappointment with a play-off final defeat at Wembley.
