Yeah I wonder every day why it has the name “Sunderland” as part of it as it seems to do nothing for us!
Clarke leaving was inevitable, hopefully the club are busy at work with some solid incomings and looking to reinvest, we need more experience and strength in depth.
Not necessarily, unless Prehab says different, but could be the club and agent putting him in the shop window.
This is (in my opinion) the first real test of this fabled "model". Assuming we get £20 for Clarke (£3m of which goes to Spurs) then how we spend that money will be interesting. We have a bit of extra coin from Southampton following their promotion so let's say we have £20m to spend. I'd love to see 3 players come in for that money and create a real spine for the team. My fear is that Speakman will double down on his "foreign teenagers with 0 minutes" approach and sign 12 lads from France, none of whom are ready to hit the ground running.
Think you can rest easy, we already have quite a bloated squad, adding 12 lads from France would just clog up the route to the first team. In my opinion IF the sale happens this window will be about quality and NOT quantity
I hope so. We are not far away from being a team that can really compete. If we used the Clarke money for a quality striker, a CDM and possibly a CB we would be very close to the top 6 I reckon.
Won’t be enough for some still!! But it’s exactly where we should ge aiming at this moment. As a size if club, we should ge in the top league undoubtably, but from the size that the like if Donald et al made us, 3rd season in the league we should be pushing for top 6. Agree with everything you say there
What a signing Clarke was. Nice loan first to see if the move works for us and him. Then get him for a low fee because all he’d really shown (to outsiders) is flashes of reemergence in League 1. You could say that he has been one of the major successes of the model already.
Just to say, Jack Clarke is not itching for a move in any way, shape or form. He absolutely loves it here and is really happy, as are all the players I know of - even post Mowbray moving on and the poor end to the season. With all of them though, that obviously needs to be balanced with recognising and achieving their full earning and playing potential and it's a relatively short career after all. Equally the club need to make the best return they can on players and that likely means selling when there's a reasonable amount left on their contract - for Jack will be this window or January at the very latest I would say.
I'd rather they reverted to the approach that saw us sign Clarke (and, to be fair, several others), targeting players who's careers have maybe stalled a little bit but who's value is potentially a lot a higher than we can get them for. If we can get three players of that type for the Clarke money, I'd be happy.
I just hope if he does go, it's done early so we can have a good amount of time this summer to bring in quality additions and reinvesting the money
Going to be interesting to see how much the squad develops in the coming weeks. We have some talented kids with potential, but lacking the nous that experience brings. I'm not necessarily in the camp that would have kept Batth & Pritchard, but hopefully we can bring in some quality that allows these kids to develop: Plenty work to do in that squad IMHO. 2 x strikers, left winger (not convinced Embo can step up at this level and jury is out on Mundle) Midfield looks light. Would consider loaning Hjelde out IF we bring in another CB and we can have faith that Cirkin/Alese can stay fit I see no point loaning Bennette out again - he's either good enough or he isn't. Millar and Willock added to that squad looks a lot better
