£3.5m - That's what Sunderland think Chopra is worth just a year after Newcastle sold him for only £500,000...

Chopra left arch-rivals Newcastle only last season for £500,000. He had been offered a one-year deal by then manager Glenn Roeder, a fallback as Newcastle fretted over the chase for Obafemi Martins, but was advised to leave.

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The adviser to Chopra? Alan Shearer, as unlikely an ally in an eventual Sunderland deal as you will find. Perplexed Sunderland fans were last night still trying to come to terms with such an unexpected turn of events.

They awoke on Monday morning to claims — inaccurate, as it turned out — that Paul Scholes would be joining his former team-mate Roy Keane at the Stadium of Light for the club's return to the Premiership.

Still, it was at least seen as a benchmark of ambition.

By then overtures for David Nugent and Jermain Defoe had proved unsuccessful and Sunderland manager Keane told fans: "I would spend £10m on a player, Jesus, I would spend £20m. It would not worry me."

Whatever Chopra is, he is not Scholes who, Keane has admitted, will be making just one trip to the Stadium of Light next season — as a Manchester United player.

Yet Chopra, for all the doubt, does have pedigree. In his teens he was the bright young thing on Tyneside for several seasons, scoring goals for fun at youth and then reserve level.

That he was half Asian, half Geordie and went to the same Gosforth High School that Shearer had attended catapulted him into the headlines.

His debut came in 2002 in a League Cup defeat to Everton at just 18 years old. Everton that day paraded their own 17-year-old star — Wayne Rooney.

It was man versus boy and Chopra slipped back to reserve level and was told to bulk up.

Loan spells at Watford, Nottingham Forest and then Barnsley — who twice tried to sign him — failed to convince those in power at St James' Park. He emerged as a regular towards the end of the 2006 season — largely because of a lengthy injury list — as Newcastle somehow finished seventh and sneaked into the Intertoto Cup, but regular football called with Cardiff and he left for just £500,000.

For all the muted reaction from Sunderland supporters, his goals took Dave Jones' side to the top of the Championship early last season and kept them on the cusp of the play-offs until they faded in the New Year.

He finished the season with 22 league goals from 42 games, more than the desired strike ratio of one every two games, and a record that compares favourably with the more vaunted 23-year-old Nugent, who managed seven fewer strikes in 43 Championship appearances.

Chopra has moved to the Stadium of Light for just over half the £6m Portsmouth yesterday paid for Nugent. But there remain major doubts about Chopra who, at 5ft 8in, is not tall for a Premiership striker, nor is he particularly quick.

He will find it hard to displace any of the five forwards Keane had at his disposal last season. Republic of Ireland strikers Daryl Murphy and Dave Connolly finished the season as the recognised first-choice pairing.

Stern John has Premiership experience, Stephen Elliott has potential and even Dwight Yorke could be asked to play off a lone front man away from the Stadium of Light.

Quite where Chopra fits in will become apparent only when the season begins.

Sunderland fans were at least warned when Keane had spoken fearlessly of spending £20m, more than twice the club's current record.

"It is wrong to spend £10m just to grab a few headlines for a few days," he said.

Chopra has only one Premiership goal to his name from his time with Newcastle. The opponents that day in April 2006 were Sunderland in a 4-1 win for Roeder's side.

The Geordie striker could not have a higher mountain to climb than to win over Black Cats fans.

Keane was out of luck yesterday when one of his top summer targets, Southampton defender Chris Baird, 25, turned him down, preferring to try to complete a £3m move to Fulham.