It's consistent with what Ivor has said. But I feel this is more about Danny's frame of mind and his apparent drink problem as discussed on here. If he's not playing regular first 11 football it's more a factor. Think Di Canio is being disingenuous with this though, and he's trying to deflect blame onto the swans because of his obvious failings at Sunderland, and with this signing of him by the club to begin with. http://dlvr.it/3Ks5tS
Gower and now Graham, both not fit enough to play first team football, what were we paying them for. terrible indictment of their professionalism that they didn't put the work in to be in proper condition.
Yankee beat me to it, But in all fairness, Graham has been there since January. It is down to Sunderland if he isnt fit, they have had 3 months to get him fit if he wasnt when he left. But to be fair to Graham, thought he was looking good just before he left and had started scoring.
Agree with Trundle, he looked fit for us in the final games that he played. If he wasn't fit/match sharp, then he wouldn't have scored the goals he did before ,leaving.
To me that's Sunderland's problem. As mentioned he's been with them since end of Jan, so you would have thought it's down to them and not deflect the blame towards us.
I dont see what this has to do with the Swans. DG went ages ago! i think our fitness is ok,i didnt see us wilt against Spurs,Norwich,Chelsea or Man city and as any coach will tell you at this time of the season fitness should take care of its self really. Rest is the most important factor at this time of year,maybe Dicanio is deflecting ..again!
He looked fine when he left; he was in good shape and beginning to score goals. Sunderland have to take a look at themselves over this one. I wish him all the best but it was a stupid move and I think he will begin to see it now, especially considering that when he left he was starting to build a good partnership with Michu. Here's an interesting question; would you guys want him back if we could get him back cheaply in the summer? We do need two strikers after all.
No way would i have him back. Loved him when he was here but i dont think he was an ideal fit into the way Laudrup wants to play,he was always half a yard short of getting on the end of chances and while he did his bit for us i think its fair to say we have both moved on. We never really got to the bottom of why he left, im led to beleive it was as much if not more off field than on field problems and the way that Laudrup and the club were ready to ship him out at £5m tells me they were desperate to **** him off..whatever reason it was it has proved to be a good one IMO. We made money and have saved 6 months of wages with the money in the bank ready for our summer targets. I personally thought it was a smart move looking back at it.
I'm inclined to agree with you. At the time I thought it was bonkers as I had a feeling Michu would go off the boil and Luke Moore can only do so much (Though I think he's done a bit better than we expected), plus when Sunderland splashed out £15m on Steven Fletcher I thought we might get more than £5m for Graham. Looking back on it now though, it was probably a good decision, even if it probably came at the cost of a few goals.
Shrewd move NJ. Danny was struggling mentally by the sounds of it and now we need to look at buying a better quality striker or two. I still want Aspas and Lukaku. Although David Villa or Negrado would be nice if not a tad unrealistic!
Just read the interview with paulo, i think that says more about Danny Graham than anything else! when the manager is asking "can he play football?" then you know something is up ! There were a few rumours on one of the Mackem boards saying he was giving the social scene alot of action(putting it mildly) maybe Laudrup noticed this early on and decided to **** him off because of it? makes sense why we got rid pronto at £5m quid doesnt it? especially as proven prem scorers usually go for quite a bit more!! the price seemed low to all of us at the time but maybe it was a stroke of genius by Laudrup and the board ?
May be he does have alcoholism rather than just 'likes the odd brew'. Sad if so. Turning up pissed is just not on in the modern game. He could have been a legend if he was about in the 60's!
