Sink or swim for Speakman, do the business and get us back on track instead of potentially treading water like we were from February to May.
I like the clubs approach regarding not being held to ransom, but it has it's downside. If we are not willing to pay the quoted price, there are plenty of clubs that will, which is why I suspect that we have been in for a few, but have missed out because of our stance. They will get a 9 eventually, we just have to maintain a level of patience, which I know is difficult when we see other clubs signing forwards.
The obvious question being, what if the club do all that and the player doesn’t work? If the club don’t do it, but Mayenda makes a leap, have they succeeded or failed?
Failed. I can't praise poor processes even if the result is a positive. KLD was quoted speaking to a fan at the kit launch saying that we need 'a goalscoring striker', Speakman has mentioned strikers multiple times and RLB said that Mayenda can't be the only forward this season. The club clearly want a striker so it would be a failure to not get one even if Mayenda has a good season (which I think he will anyway).
No, I didn't say that. Everyone connected with Sunderland wants strikers ... ... but no one wants another Will Grigg. Spending more doesn't always work and the mistake is harder to get over. Stewart was our best buy, for peanuts, but Shankland might flop completely at.£3m and, at 29, we'd probably lose money. He's a striker, and scorer, but not best in a high pressing team imo.
That's why we have a recruitment team now and not just an owner getting excited and buying a player the head coach didn't even want. There's a bigger chance of failure shopping in the free agent/low fee market. In the championship last season, out of the out and out strikers that scored 15+ the only one who didn't cost more than £5m was Vardy, who is on over £100k per week. At some point we need to raise funds and pay for a forward.
The most ridiculous argument ever, let’s never sign another striker because Will Grigg was a flop 5 years ago.
That was just one example. We've had loads of flops over the years, some more recent than Grigg. And I've just said we need to sign strikers, as I keep saying. I didn't say let's never buy another. You're right about 'most ridiculous argument ever' though
Chelsea signed Drogba the season after wasting loads on Adrian Mutu! We have to trust that the recruitment is in a much better place now to not put in the same position as back then. I still laugh at the Netflix documentary when we were in L1 and they drew up a list of transfer targets, and Ibrahimovic was on the list
Who's gonna take the armband though, for me it's between 3, onien, Neil or Browne. A bit too early for brown in his career here and I think onien will carry on helping out the onfield captain so that leaves Neil for me, might be a bit young but he's experienced now and I think he would excel at it
Brentford signed Janssen from Leeds and made him their captain straight away, went up his first full season iirc.
