With FA Premier League regulations dictating that boys must live within 90 minutes travel of any team they sign for, Sunderland's proximity to the sea restricts the number of youngsters eligible to join the Stadium of Light's youth programme.

It has left a frustrated Keane having to find other ways of luring promising players to the club's academy. Many managers are circumventing the 90-minute rule by simply buying the best teenagers produced by the academies of smaller or overseas clubs.

"A lot of the young kids at Arsenal and Chelsea that are praised haven't come through their academies, they've been bought from other clubs," said Sunderland's manager. "That's something we are looking at. If you look at our academy, we are restricted in terms of our location.

"You can only bring in kids from a certain area. It's a certain radius and a lot of our radius is in the water. We have to look at whether there's any good fish out there. Manchester City and Chelsea got a lot of credit for reaching the FA Youth Cup final last season but they actually bought quite a few of those players."

Sunderland were beaten by City in the Youth Cup semi-finals last spring. "Arsene Wenger is very switched on to it. If he gets a player in the first team and someone says, 'well, you bought him from Millwall for £50,000', he'll say 'so what?'. And sometimes that £50,000 will keep a smaller club going. Buying in youth players is not all bad."

Keane is excited by Arsenal's youngsters. "The word on the football street is that they have a group of kids coming through who will be absolutely outstanding," he said.