ALBION face fresh competition from the Championship for new goalkeeper Jason Steele’s Sunderland team-mate Paddy McNair.

Stoke, not Middlesbrough, now appear to be favourites after the Seagulls completed the capture of Steele hot on the heels of cooling their interest in McNair.

Middlesbrough withdrew their £5 million offer last night once Sunderland owner Stewart Donald revealed relegated Stoke had matched their £5 million bid for the versatile Northern Ireland international, which is well above Albion’s valuation.

Donald told fanzine the Roker Report: “They (Middlesbrough) matched our valuation of the player. Brighton were interested but we’ve knocked back two bids from them. They don’t see him as being over £3m. No one in the Premier League values him at more than that.

“The market knows we’ve accepted an offer from Middlesbrough and if anyone in the Premier League was interested at that mark then they would come in but the only club that has matched that so far is Stoke.”

Cash-strapped Sunderland’s strategy of provoking an auction off the back of Albion’s interest has already riled Boro and could backfire further if former Manchester United prospect McNair digs his heels in.

He is thought to prefer a move back to the Premier League, although he could be enticed by the wages Stoke are capable of offering.

Donald said: “Has Paddy McNair put a transfer request in? No. Has his agent told us he would never ever play for the club again? Yes. Has he told us that aggressively? Yes.

“So what can we do? We would like to have kept Paddy. He’s been relegated twice and been injured and we’ve stood by him and we would like to have thought he’d have given us a year.

“He would have been on an awful lot of money for League One but he would probably have been the best midfielder in the division.

“But he doesn’t want to play in League One and I understand that so we have to do what is best for the club.

“We paid £4-5m for him and we won’t let him go for any less than that.”