Congerton speaks

http://safc.com/news/team-news/2014/june/congerton-on-transfers

Congerton spells out transfer approach
Published: 18 June, 2014
by Stuart Vose

Sporting director says club won't be rushed into deals.
Sunderland are active in the transfer market but won’t be rushed into summer signings, according to sporting director Lee Congerton.
Congerton, head coach Gus Poyet and the football staff have identified summer targets, with deals for Billy Jones, Jordi Gomez and Costel Pantilimon already completed.

We don’t want to sign players for the sake of it because that can cause problems later on
- Lee Congerton

Meanwhile Seb Larsson and Jordan Pickford have both agreed new long-term contracts with the club.
The Black Cats are pro-actively targeting new faces, but the considered approach is very much the way forward.
“The market is out there, it’s working, people are out doing business and everything is being done behind the scenes,” said Congerton, who met with Foundation of Light supporters and corporate partners at the charity’s fixtures breakfast on Wednesday morning.

“Everything’s ongoing but at the end of the day we’re in no rush. We want to sign the right players.
“We don’t want to sign players for the sake of it because that can cause problems later on.”
He added: “Obviously last year the club did very well with loans and we’ll go into the loan market again.
“Hopefully in years to come the loan market won’t be as important as it is today and we’ll have more players provided from the academy who belong to Sunderland AFC.”
Three domestic friendlies have already been confirmed ahead of the new season, with the squad then set to fly out to Portugal for a warm-weather training camp.
There’s a massive challenge for us and there’s no easy games, but we’re going the right way
- Congerton on 2014-15

And Congerton feels the squad will benefit from a full pre-season under the guidance of Poyet, who joined the club last October.
“Pre-season is so important for any coach or manager,” he said.
“Gus has ideas and strategy and a way of playing. He understands how he wants to play and gets his message across.
“He creates practices for the players, but they’re always specific to how he wants to play, not just with the ball but without it and in transition.
“I’m very confident that Gus will shape our team into a competitive side for next season. We’re looking forward to it. There’s a massive challenge for us and there’s no easy games, but we’re going the right way.”


This very much says to me we arent looking at players who are just going to keep us afloat, we are going to improve with quality once we have a squad with Depth...

like what he has to say to be fair to him, especially with the we won't be held to ransom idea

 

Yep, I like the cut of his jib here.

I'm sure Gus will have identified most of his targets for this season and I'm pretty sure he has irons in other fires too. I'm not panicking yet.

And, no other clubs are spending yet are they ?

 

''He added: “Obviously last year the club did very well with loans and we’ll go into the loan market again''

It's ok taking on loan players if we then take on options or push to sign them afterwards. If Alonso goes to West Ham this is a wasted opportunity. Same with Borini and Vergini.

 

we should definatly be busting a gut to sign vergini and alonso. i would like to see borini as well but thats going to be a harder one to pull off. alonso seems like he wants to stay anyway so for me should have been done at the end of last season without giving anyone else a chance to creep in. it will be a major **** up by the club if we miss out

 

I disagree completely. No opportunities were wasted as all players played massive parts in helping us remain in the premier league - that, in itself, is worth the investment in their loan deals. If Alonso goes to West Ham (Swansea have been mooted as a loan since the West Ham link), then so be it - there will be one thing pointing him there and that's money. Not Football.

I personally think the Mirror are just a spokesperson for Alonso's agent who is trying to get him a deal somewhere! Alan Nixon isn't exactly the font of all knowledge after all

All well and good saying that but how much of a "f**k up" is it if his agent is asking for £70k a week? None at all - we don't know the whole story so we're all speculating. I rate Alonso, but this smells of papers selling a player after contact from an agent rather than concrete story to me. We also couldn't sort it out as Fiorentina wanted him back to assess before selling him - there was no buy-out clauise written into the loan so we can;t negotiate with a player unless his parent club allows it.

 

I like it

 

I hate the loan system! You are always a team in transition, you can't build a team. Look at those who did well for us last year! Without a clause to buy we will always tread water!

 

We have so many positions to fill, 1 or 2 loans wont be too bad

 

The fact that the loan players did well will make them tougher to negotiate with, they're all businessmen these days.

If they're trying to pull our pants down then I wouldn't want them here.

I don't trust any of them nowadays and they either sign or they don't, I'm not too fussed either way.

If they come at a price the club want to pay then that's great .......... Jack Colback has shown how much loyalty players really have.

 

The way I see it we're still putting right a lot of wrongs, Our squad is thin and needs numbers, the loan market allows us to make squad transition more gradual rather than having to shell out on 12 permanent contracts all at once which wouldn't be wise imo, better than having to pay out extra fees and sign up fees which would clearly put a strain the budget and limits the quality we can bring in. We all to make loan signings the thing of the past but to turn our back on them now would be just plain daft.

Screw what it does for the player, or future cost of transfers, think of it as us using them for 12 months for our own ends. If we don't sign them up permanently due to price increases and what not then so what? Plenty more fish in the sea.