SUNDERLAND will move on swiftly from their disappointment in missing out on Hull-bound Tom Huddlestone. But Paolo Di Canio will insist that the club still go in search of a quality, ball-playing English central midfielder with physical presence, before the transfer window closes at 11pm on September 2. Huddlestone seemed to perfectly fit the template Di Canio outlined to the clubâs director of football Roberto De Fanti and chief scout Valentin Angeloni at the start of the summer. And the Black Cats did enquire about the availability and cost of the 26-year-old Tottenham man â a player whose quality has never been in doubt, even though injuries have disrupted his career. Sunderland, though, were unwilling to meet the initial figures quoted by Spurs and settled themselves in for what is usually a long haul in negotiating with the Londoners. In the meantime, the Black Cats spent ambitiously with £6.8million Emanuele Giaccherini joining from Serie A champions Juventus while £6m was spent on bringing in key striker Jozy Altidore from AZ Alkmaar. In all, the Black Cats have already spent nearly £30m in transfers and extra costs. And when Hull came in with their club record-breaking offer to Spurs, Sunderland found themselves having to accept that Huddlestone was out of their budget, as things stand. Yesterday, Di Canio accepted the situation as Huddlestone penned a three-year deal with Steve Bruceâs Tigers but is still striving for the sort of midfielder he feels is critical to the sideâs progress. And although he appreciates that such players are hard to find, the Italian uggests that a loan move or a young footballer of potential, rather than an established player, might have to be the way Sunderland go this term. âI donât want to talk about Tom Huddlestone,â he said. âBut we are looking for a player and, for me, when we are looking for a player, character is the most important thing. âIf I outline the sort of player I want and Iâm told we canât spend because we spend already, then I will lay down only the characteristic to the club. âIf Iâm told that a player is expensive, then I will say âOK, get me similarâ. âGet me a player who has those characteristics, who can be a playmaker, but who might be a young prospect â someone I can work on, to push for a place and give pressure to the others. âI want those characteristics â it might have to be a young player, or even a loan. âBut the player needs to be a playmaker, not someone to be part of a three in midfield, but someone who can be the playmaker in a two-man midfield because we want to play with two wide men.
With the loan of Celutska, proposed loan of Cissokho and now this, Ellis must be really tightening things down. I never considered this to be the case though with the tv deal, the sale of mig, etc. I would have expected us to have had some money floating about considering when most of our work has been freebies.
Like you say a lot of our business has come from free signings, however these free signings although they don't come with a transfer fee they still need an attractive wage to sign for the club. So buy not paying a TX fee we can offer them good money, so the more senior players like Cabrel, Diakite, and Roberge will all be tied into a several million pound package ,each. We have to look past the actual transfer fee and realise what the club is committed to with all the players we have already gotten in and any future signings.
I don;t know what money they're on but the lack of paying out £x million in transfer fees allows us to pay them an extra £10k a week on top of what we would normally have - and it also still costs a lot less than it would have with a transfer fee IMO - an extra £500k over 3 or 4 years is £1.5 - £2m - for a player potentially worth 5 or 6 million (Cabral) or more! No brainer in my book. Time is the only thing that will tell but, if these players hit the ground running, then we will have a very exciting season ahead of us
I understand this mate, however they are coming from leagues where I suspect their contracts would be less lucrative than EPL players. Therefore, I would assume that in comparison to what the likes of Bramble was on, they will be on pennies (in footballing terms of course).
You can feel his frustration. I dont buy all this tightening up **** when we are clearly short of players, if we had a full squad then fair enough but we haven't. The N'daiye loan still seems strange to me, Cabral gets injured and we are relying on ****e.
Yup. after all the great work on transfers we've done, it would be a dreadful error of judgement to not have the necessary midfielders in place. Without N'Diaye AND if Catts isn't in PDC's plans he needs, we need at least 1 midfielder to replace the hustling bustling position...unless Ba is being moulded for that position? Then we still need a playmaker as a choice of one of Larsson, Vaughan, Gardner in that role clearly ain't good enough to supply what is now an excellent frontline of attacking prowess. we'll see, eh.
Ba is nowhere near upto that standard against hardened PL players, be very harsh to throw him in and then face criticism from our fans when he should be getting protected.
I know mate, that's why I used the term 'moulded'. Short-term (this season, at least 1st half of the season) he ain't the solution. There's only one way to mould a player and that is through playing him in the reserves & occasionally as a sub or a stint on loan. But for now we are short in that department.
Sounds like he wants to go 442 with a playmaker next to Cabral giach and aj wide. I think that he definitely sees Sessegnon as one of his 5 forwards
Jack Rodwell, wouldn't be surprised if we enquired about a loan. He desperately needs games and Pellegrini will know this and he's not guaranteed that at City.
Jack Rodwell, wouldn't be surprised if we enquired about a loan. He desperately needs games and Pellegrini will know this and he's not guaranteed that at City.
Think hes gona go -----Cabral--- playmaker?-------- Jonno----Sess-------Giaccarini -----------Altidore------- Not sure how hes gona do it when Fletch is back?
Think he's a bit more of a box to box midfielder, good passer and fairly quick, 6'2 so also a physical presence. Similarish to Huddlestone but more mobile
The club has definitely stopped spending whilst telling us they haven't. Going back to Quinn & Bruce days this is when it changed. We sold our best players and now appear comfortable with premier league survival. Ellis is trying the cheap foreign way as Newcastle do but this will only ever bring survival as any player that performs will move on. This is also why we have a paper thin squad.
I've got a feeling Ellis is planning for january. We needed a lot more signings last january than what we got. much more. Emergency January kitty makes perfect sense to me after last year.
people are forgetting about the the FFP rules. Whats the point in spending to get into europe, if the same spending stops us from playing in Europe? Its all about balancing the books right now, while being smart in the transfer market. Besides, Short might have told PDC to dampen fans expectations. We are getting slightly carried away.... I expect us to avoid the relegation fight at the end of the season, but with all these new players who need to get used to the premier league, regardless of the pre-season bedding in time, I dont expect a comfortable ride all the way.
Altidore competes with Fletcher, should be a good competition and formations change throughout a game so we could see Altidore & Fletcher together when we are chasing games but we will rarely start with them both as we would never see the ball.
