Sunderland have now confirmed former Norwich City manager Alex Neil is in talks to join Championship rivals Stoke City, on the eve of the Canaries' visit to Wearside.

The Scot was due to hold a 9am press conference ahead of his old club's Saturday lunchtime visit, but that had been pushed back to 2pm after 'internal meetings overran'.

Sunderland released an official statement just before 1:30pm which read:

"Sunderland AFC can confirm that Alex Neil has entered into discussions with Stoke City regarding their current managerial vacancy.

"Following a formal approach by Stoke City, the club is contractually obliged to permit the head coach to start a dialogue with the Potters.

"The club is committed to retaining Alex’s services as head coach and will be making no further comment at this moment in time."

Media reports earlier in the day suggested that Neil has been allowed to talk to Stoke about replacing Michael O'Neill as boss, with the Northern Irishman dismissed yesterday after an under-par start to their campaign.

Neil signed a rolling contract upon his appointment at the Stadium of Light in February.

He guided them to promotion back to the Championship via the playoffs and has lost just two league matches as Sunderland boss.

This will do little to help preparations for Sunderland with Norwich travelling to the North East this afternoon ahead of Saturday's lunchtime kick-off.

Neil, who managed Norwich between 2015-17, also spent four years at Preston North End before being dismissed in March 2021.

Bookmakers have also installed the 41-year-old as odds-on favourite to replace O'Neill at Stoke, with this move gathering momentum throughout Friday morning.

City head coach Dean Smith spoke at length about the former Norwich boss at his pre-match press conference on Friday morning, but now there is uncertainty about who will be occupying the home dug-out tomorrow.

"I know all about what he did getting this club promoted through the play-offs to the Premier League. I've come across him a number of times when we have played against each other. Obviously when he was at Preston.

"He had a great promotion last season," Smith said. "A lot of other managers have gone in there and found it really tough at Sunderland, and he's got them promoted in his first attempt. A good manager. And his team is always hard to play against.

"I watched them at Stoke last weekend and I think he would agree with me he wasn't happy with what he saw in the first half, because he looked very angry.

"But second half they definitely played a lot better. From the games that I've seen on video as well they are very much a front foot team."