And the “good players are hard to sign” narrative, whilst absolutely right, works both ways. There’s only so long before those players become even harder to sign because (a) clubs don’t want to lose them so late in window as will struggle to replace and (b) clubs and agents will know that Sunderland still need to sign players and so can ask for more money And we run the risk of those good players staying too hard to sign, and then having to end up doing what we can late on. Thats the risk. I still back then to get it right. But LJs comments tonight are the first sign of worry for me
Mate it is 5 weeks until the prem window closes. After that we probably have a couple of weeks on loans. The only panic is if you want your best 11 on day 1. 46 games is a hell of a long season. We can afford to make a leap in quality in players between match 1 and 6 and still be odds on for promotion if the players we get late are game changers. I have never felt previous regimes had the contacts or nouse to play this long game, our current recruitmemt team have got the t shirt.
Plus if you think the mood has gone bad now, just wait until we accept a £750k bid for Embleton from Blackpool next week
Bear in mind that the Olympics has just started too and it's an U23 competition. Some clubs won't be letting players go until that's over incase of injuries/covid etc
I dont mean they are hard to sign in this way. We will be looking at top end prem loans. They will be loaned only once their first team.squad is sorted. That could be end of August. Deals will be agreed in principle now, but a pause while they shuffle their main 23. We can wait or move on to easier targets, but if we think player x is better we should wait surely.
absolutely. The statement is right. I’m just saying it can work both ways, especially if agents and clubs notice that we are behind in terms of the signings we want to make. And LJ has very much drawn attention to that tonight. If I was an agent I’d be trying to get a bit more out of us now as I can see the pressure is on
A lot of people seem downbeat tonight. If we had Pritchard and O'Nien in tonight's squad, it would have looked a lot rosier. Xhemajli isn't a million miles off, and August has a couple of cup games in it to allow new signings/players returning from injury to get up to speed. There's hardly been any signings in the premier league so far, yet they don't seem in the hurry/panic a lot of our fan base are, and their window is end of August too. Signings will happen, we just need to be patient.
Sadly this won’t wash with the size of the club and expectancy ambition of the fanbase. We all know if we have a bad start the boooo’s will ring out and there will be pressure on him from the off. He doesn’t have to spend big on transfers. 5 million budget is enough to blow any club in league one out of the water and is equivalent to 100 notes in our back pocket. If he’s come here with the idea of not spending on transfer he’ll soon learn the impatience of the fanbase.
I would rather we signed a solid championship player who will be here for 2 or 3 years than a premiership loanee who would be gone after 9 months and who could be recalled at any point.
If things only ever worked in that way then no sale would ever go through. There would just be an infinite chain of transfers built up, always waiting for the last team approached to replace the player they were going to sell.
We need a good striker, i doubt Stewart O'Brien and Grigg? Fit the bill. If Hume is injured/leaving we need a left back... Just what is the CB position, we wanted Sanderson that is not going to happen. I presume Younger will get his chance and we have player X who has been injured for a year?
Don't go on RTG mate. Grown ups crying coz we haven't bought 2 full backs yet. Still loads left in the window. KLD has pumped millions into the club so far yet people are moaning coz we haven't went and got callum mcfadzean coz he's available. We've got a long term plan in place. Everyone just needs to chill out
You can spend £100,000 on a player and get a 'bargain'. You can spend £2,000,000 on a player and get a 'bargain'.
There is no one "crying", but people are concerned. Johnson said he is having sleepless nights, is he a crying bed wetter, or do we have to ignore it just to suit a certain narrative. Is Callum McFadzean the only full back available? People are "moaning" because we haven't improved the team at this moment in time, they aren't moaning just for the sake of it like elsewhere. We are discussing the current state of the squad, not what it might look like in 5 weeks or 5 years time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Maybe they can see a long term plan, or maybe they think that millions being spent on the ground and the wifi isn't really going to benefit. People aren't going to go the SOL to watch drab football, just because we have a nice pitch, cold beer and great internet access I would suggest that maybe the hold up is because of wages, but that is where Speakman and other new appointments as part of the "millions invested", need to earn their corn. None of the above is bed wetting, crying or whatever puerile names you want to throw out there, its genuine concern from someone who has been watching Sunderland for around 50 years. Calling people like that is neither funny nor original and certainly isn't conducive to a healthy debate that we appreciate on this forum
