Steve Bruce had to sell his stars at Wigan, but doesn't intend to do the same at Sunderland, where he wants to "keep trying to build".
Bruce is relishing the chance to make a second-half push for the upper reaches of the Premier League after re-iterating that the club's prize assets are not for sale.
Saturday's 3-0 home victory over Blackburn left the Black Cats in sixth place on 30 points after 21 games, and well on course to secure a first finish in the top half since the Peter Reid era a decade ago.
Bruce found himself in a similar position two years ago during his final season at Wigan when a win over Tottenham on January 11, 2009 left the Latics in seventh with 31 points.
However, the January sales of Wilson Palacios and Emile Heskey, who were soon to be followed out of the door by Antonio Valencia as Wigan cashed in on their biggest assets, meant they were unable to maintain their charge, and they eventually finished in a still creditable 11th place having collected just another 14 points.
There will be no repeat this time around with Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn having insisted at the weekend that only a "crazy" offer would prompt the club even to contemplate selling any of its current crop of players.
Bruce said: "I knew I was losing them, I knew I was losing Palacios and I knew I was losing Heskey and I knew I was losing Valencia, so that was very, very difficult.
"We don't want to lose anybody because we don't have to, and we want to keep trying to build. That's what the aim has got to be."
The win over Rovers helped to soothe the pain of a 2-0 home defeat by Blackpool four days earlier, during which the Black Cats squandered a catalogue of opportunities, and Bruce was relatively content with his lot.
He said: "It's nice too see us in sixth. It would have been great if we had had 33 points, which we should have had. Then it would have looked even more rosy.
"But to see us in sixth, we would all have settled for that going into the new year. I have got a lot of good young players who we enjoy working with."
