True, but I think it would be foolish and naive to leave Matete out on loan and find ourselves short. It'd be very Sunderlandy As it stands our squad options are: GK: Patterson, Bass, Carney RB: Hume, Gooch, Hugins CB: Batth, Ballard, Wright, O'Nien LB: Alese, Cirkin CM: Michut, Neil, Ba, Ekwah RW: Roberts, Diallo AM: Pritchard LW: Clarke, Dajaku CF: Stewart Very, very light in some areas. Pritchard, Huggins, Alese, Gooch and Cirkin are all very injury prone. We've already lost Embo and Evans for the season. It just makes sense to bring Matete back
I'd like to think so. We tend to do the right thing by our players. Out of contract, injured last thing he needs to worry about getting another job so to speak.
Hmm. Depends how long he's out for. If he's back for pre season then fine, but if this is another Jordan Willis situation then I hope it's a coaching contract so as to not impact on our playing budget. Harsh I know, but it is what it is
Sunderland keen to tie down youngster Dan Neil with Premier League sides Crystal Palace and Brighton starting to circle.
We have options, if it was any position you’d want to lose a player you’d probably say CM because we’re stacked - just rather it wasn’t Evans! I’m sure we’ll manage fine, what Ekwah will clearly lack in experience he’ll make up in physicality over Evans. Could end up seeing more of a 3 in the middle if we’re getting overwhelmed and just playing without a proper 10 in certain situations with Diallo and Roberts/Clarke wide of Stewart. Ekwah/Ba, Michut and Neil in the middle.
Good to see the board are seemingly pushing hard on getting Neil tied down, I’m still anxious about the Stewart contract though.
If I had to guess, I think we will try and get Lewis Travis from Blackburn. Is their club captain but has been dropped recently and hasn’t started since mid December. Started all but one game for Mowbray last season