Simon Grayson will look to make quick additions to his Sunderland squad – and is likely to target players with Championship experience.New manager Grayson took training for the first time yesterday and will fly out with his Black Cats players to Austria for a training camp this morning. The squad is threadbare and, while Grayson will take time to assess, he does hope to make some swift acquisitions – with the Championship campaign starting in 34 days. Grayson said: “We’ll want to do one or two things quite quickly because of the low numbers that we’ve got. “We’ve got a few players who’ve not come back from international duty yet as well. “We want to do one or two as quickly as we can, but that still gives me a chance to look at the Under-23s and players in the existing squad.” With no senior striker on board, Grayson will have to quickly build a new squad and he wants players with the right attitude. Championship experience will be favoured, while Grayson also played down fears that he will be a hamstrung by a severely limited budget. He said: “That will be our line of enquiry into players, players that know it [the Championship]. “They might be 30 years old or 21. They might have been at a big Premier League club and think, ‘right, I want to go and make a career in the game’, with that hunger and desire, and understand what is required. “I would think they would have that Championship experience. “If you look at the four previous clubs I’ve been at, this will be the biggest budget I’ve worked with, but it doesn’t faze me. “Whatever I’ve been given in the past, I’ve always tried to make sure I get the best value for money, whether it is loans, free transfers or money in the market. “After talks with Mr Short and Martin (Bain), I’m aware of what we’ve got to spend and what we are able to do. “Sometimes it isn’t about what you spend, it is about what you bring into the football club to make it successful.” Grayson has already been linked with Everton winger Aiden McGeady, who thrived on loan for Grayson at Preston last season. Powerful Middlesbrough-born striker Jordan Hugill has also been linked. He was coy on those reports, but did not rule out signing from his former club. He said: “Well, there there you go, two players I’ve worked with before and people have been linked with me. “Them to have been linked, time will tell if they land on our doorstep. “Time will tell whether we go back to Preston, but I’ve got a huge amount of respect for that football club and I don’t want to do too much to harm that. “I’ve already taken my assistant manager from there, so maybe not too many there.”
Martin Bain has said that the £30 million made through the sale of Jordan Pickford ot Everton will not be made available in its entirety to Simon Grayson, but stressed that Ellis Short would continue to fund the club.Short pulled the plug on takeover talks earlier this week amid fears that the interested parties would not be able to invest significantly in the club. Sunderland then moved quickly to appoint Simon Grayson, who said he would have a 'realistic' budget. Bain admitted that the financial impact of relegation would present a challenge but played down talk of a 'perilous' situation. He said: "We may not have the biggest transfer budget in the Championship but it won't be the smallest. We made a big sale recently in Jordan. Does that all go to the transfer kitty? Well, no. You take a drop in revenue of roughly 58 per cent TV money but we still have legacy payments on previous transfers so it all goes into the mix. "It's not, as some people have called it, a perilous situation, we have an owner who supports the club and TV money but we're going to have to juggle and at times it will be difficult. "He [Short] has owned the club, he has a commitment to the club, he funds it and many clubs would be envious of an owner like Ellis Short. Bear that in mind when there’s speculation about the ownership.''
Don't need time to asses the squad when it's thread bear and has no backbone. He can get cracking straight away. Go on my gray son.
I am going to asses the squad s hit, s hit, s hit, s hit, s hit, and more s hit where are them resignation papers Ellis
That last bit about other clubs being envious of Short and US taking that into account regarding ownership is exactly why that pile of human vomit Bain should be nowhere near our club. He's fed us **** and told us to savour it like like fine cuisine. The man is a ****ing spiv. Grayson and the players have my support. The hierarchy can **** itself bloody with a stick
What could Bain say? I know my boss is a prick and a tight twat but he's still here, so until he leaves Sunderland will continue to suffer? He's seemingly doing a good job and is saying all he can say with regards to Short, imo
He shouldn't have said anything to that effect at all, he didn't need too. The statement Short would continue to own and 'fund' the club was enough absolutely no need to remind us how lucky we are to have had our club dragged through **** for the last 5 years
To be honest Huddersfield (and a few years ago Watford) and to a lesser extent Brighton seemed to just get as many loans as they could swing. The size of your squad could help convince the player farms you are indeed going to play their prospects each week. There's some handy free players around who can do a job in that league too. I can't believe we let Anita go. For not a lot he could put together a fighting team in that league I think.
