King Kenny seems hell bent, if newspapers are to be believed, on filling the Anfield squad with good, hungry young English/British players. Given that much of Liverpool’s successes in the 70's and 80's came about with a team/squad full of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English talent, interspersed with a sprinkling of foreign talent, its no surprise that Dalgliesh has embarked on this course. After all, it was a game plan started by Shankly in the 60's, built upon by the Legendary Paisley in the 70's and followed relentlessly by a succession of Anfield legends in the 80's. Only when Souness came and started to change the game plan did Liverpool's light fade completely as League contenders. Now, we are not Liverpool and I'm not saying we are competing like for like but the game plan is one we must surely copy to the letter if we are to capitalise on our current ambitions. Gyan, Sessegnon and Malbranque are worthy players and we should keep and build on their abilities but build with proven, young hungry British/Irish players, a policy with which I'd be extremely happy. Vaughan, DJ Campbell, Larsson (foreign), Reo Coker, N'Zogbia (4 years in the EPL now), Johnson, Crouch et al are all player spoken of being targets of ours and none of them would be a bad buy IMO. Even Bothroyd for free would hardly be a gamble would he? The days of getting foreigners in who don’t settle or just come for the money are over in the EPL. Crouch and N'Zogbia would cost good money but the rest would be free (wages apart of course) and would give us a competitive squad, all keeping each other on their toes. That’s the way forward for me. It was and is the Liverpool way and theirs is not a bad blue print to follow IMO. Liverpool will be a real force next season IMO and we should be aiming to get as close to them as possible. Keep Catts and Henderson and build on them. Keep it a 'Home Country' recruitment drive this summer and we shall reap the benefits in the 2011/12 season for sure.
Very good post IMO-my only reservation is keeping Cattermole;he hardly set the world alight last season and I feel that his temperament is a bit of a liabilty.If the rumours are true I would take £10,000,000 for him.This would then leave Bardo as our natural leader.
sure i said that , seems like we agree, love this idea, no worries about losing half a team to acn, and have more players in the england squad.
10m for Catts maybe short term thinking though. If we sold him he would need replacing. 14m for Palacios and a 4m net spend would be good. 10m and replaced by Meyler or Colback (6 or 7 games is not enough to chuck him in the deep end with) would be pure folly. Commacio - great minds and all that matey.
Still think that Catts could be much better.... IF he keeps fit and develops the ability to get around the pitch with a bit more urgency. I think his passing at short range is decent, it's just when he spreads it long he comes unstuck. At the end of the day though I like him because he gives a **** and clearly wants to win every game.... I'm not convinced the likes Elmo et al do
Maybe not mate. Napoli have baulked at the 14m Spurs want for him but if we sold Catts for 10m and he only cost another 4m then happy days IMO.
It looks like the way to do things and Bruce has stated in the past he wants to put together a young hungry squad (never stated british though), but it will take time as it looks as if he is never going to get the amount of money Kenny is getting at liverpool. The only thing is that we as fans will neeed to be patient, and not be so quick to get on the players backs when they are not having good games or in poor from and Bruce (even if people don't like him as a manager) to give him a chance to put a squad like that together. All this talk of selling both Henderson and Catts and people wanting to see it happen makes me worried, the squad is thin to start with never mind losing another two.
Some of the older supporters will no doubt recall that the old Liverpol blueprint, started by Shankly, was to 'scout and acquire' young players across the whole of the UK, rather than rely on developing their own kids. programme. This was a policy implemented up the road by Keegan, who ditched the youth team quite soon after his arrival, possibly one of his biggest mistakes during his tenure. It worked at Liverpol because they built up a backroom team that ensured the ethos was followed for decades, because the managers were promoted from within and the policy continued without a ripple. It took Liverpool a few years before they reaped the rewards, but once they arrived their dominance thereafter is well documented. Once again it brings me to the old chestnut of fans patience. How would supporters react if we only retained 10th spot, but a nucleus of UK players was developing? I fear the answer may put a dampener on such a scheme.
On the contrary mate, securing 10th spot wouldnt be a poor result at all given that scenario. My biggest concern is that we have suffered 2 similar disasterous collapses now in 2 years which has cost us the ability to develop. In his 3rd season now, Bruce is having to totally restructure the squad again and thats an admittance of poor management decisions IMO. However, at least he has held up his hand it seems and is looking to make some big changes to recruitment and squad/team play. I think top 10 is once again our aim but surely not in the haphazard fashion we achieved it this season. If we have 36 points next January and fail to secure a top 10 place by the end of March/ middle of April then Bruce will have failed again. If we dont make the top 10 at all then he has to go. Consolodation or progress is acceptable. Regression is not.
Do you think Steed is going to be or should be sold in the scenario described above? We all know how good he looks on the ball in midfield, but as the season progressed it became a safe bet he was never going to score (+ Elmo).. can we have midfield players who cannot score? Having sold Bent who at present, other than Gyan will score our goals. I like most fans like Steed but he needs to score as he is often in a goal scoring position and when he misses it puts pressure on other players and he cannot usually last a full game, thereby taking up one of the subs spots.
Agreed Cest, we need to Keep Cattermole & Henderson and it riles me when people say "get rid, get rid", good job these people are not in charge of Sunderland. Our squad is already minus 5 loan players plus Zenden plus injuries to Campbell and the loss of Bent. How unbelievably stupid would it be to "get rid" of Cattermole & Henderson. No matter how much money we still have 6/7 players we need anyways so making that 8/9 new players we need for next season would mean so much hard work and even then they will need time to gel. Crazy times at the minute on the transfer gossip pages, I will be glad its all done by August
IBWT - I will state here and now that if we sell both these lads (and I dont think we will now to be honest), we will be in the bottom half all season next year, as there will be too many changes to the team and it will take them too long to settle down. Bruce cannot afford a bad start next year and will want ALL his players available to get a positive run going. I'm not saying we shouldn't improve our squad and bring in players to challenge these 2 but not replace them just yet.
Buy good players, it's pretty simple. If anyone took the time to actually watch Palacios while he was at Wigan rather than just believe the hype, they'd have realised he wasn't a good player. He was nothing but an aggressive plodder at Wigan and i said that at the time. Replacing Catts with Palacious would be terrible business - how can it be sensible to replace good with bad? Reo-Coker is another crap midfield player. Do people every watch these players?
who would you go for then? Please dont trawl the websites looking for top European talent wish list kidda, cos firstly they aint coming to Sunderland and secondly, they dont work here. Be realistic in your targets and I'll have a look at your 'top' players.
Agree with this! Palacios has struggled for a while now and it may be down to the death of his brother. I think Reo-Coker has more edge than damaged urinal.... Not what we need.... If I had a choice i would look for a midfielder like Brunt or (ambitious) Parker.
I'll make a shout again for Mark Noble. And if the bid of 28 million is true for Catts and Henderson? Besides, Bruce has had a good track record of bringing in young foreign talent - I don't think an all British team is on the cards. We do however, have some very good Academy players coming through and perhaps from here comes the heart we seek. Perhaps, we should keep the local hero Hendo after all, eh?
As well as musing whether we should let Steed go, cos of his not scoring, although he does have assists but really cannot turn a game around, I have to admit I am not super keen on Cattermole, for a few reasons really, he was dreadful early on last season, he kept getting sent off and cost us quite a few points. When he started playing again, he kept getting yellow cards (quite a lot unjustified) and I guess that is going to continue to happen because of his rep. He is slow, which is one of the reasons he dives in and his long passing is not too good and also looks unlikely to pop up with a goal plus injury problems. I reckon Meyler and Jack could be replacements and we could spend the money elsewhere. On the other hand, if we sell Henderson I will be very disappointed, he is a talent and I would make him skipper. We would struggle to bring in a replacement for him!r
I would hate to see Cattermole and Henderson go for the likes of Gibson and es Brown to come in to the team. We need better players than we have, we need to keep our best players and Seb Larsson would be a good start. Not a world-beater but a good start. I hear Liverpool might release Aurelio on a free, he would be an asset. NZogbia had a good end to his season and a lot are after him now. He would give us goals and penetration but I fear he will go elsewhere. Downing was interested but like NZogbia, I fear he will go elsewhere. Dememba Ba is OK but the striker I would like to see here is Odemwinge from West Brom. I would love to see him here. Crouch is too slow and encourages the long ball, waste of money. I don`t rate Palacious but I would have yound McCarty from Wigan like a shot. There are lots more good players out there and I hope we have the ambition to get the 7 or 8 we need.
I heard the Wes Brown rumour and thought that is it the final nail in Bruces coffin, we have an injury plagued side and need to strengthen in all areas so why are we looking at a 31 year old defender who is too injury prone, too slow, too old and is total crap. If the Gibson one is true then i think that means we will lose either Henderson or Cattermole and, out of those two I'd say let Cattermole go he's been very poor this season and wasn't great last. I think Henderson needs another season to give us a look at what he can do. As for copying the Liverpool revolution it would be nice but, we are not a recognised top team with the history that Liverpool have so we have to do it the Sunderland way. We need to get whatever players in we can that are better than what we have now whether they are foreign bargains or overpriced British talent.
