SUNDERLAND will not look to hijack Aston Villa’s move for Charles N’Zogbia, with Steve Bruce resigned to missing out on the French winger. Villa yesterday agreed a £9.5m deal with Wigan for N’Zogbia, who is due to discuss personal terms and undergo a medical before the end of the week. Ex-Newcastle man N’Zogbia is understood to have preferred a return to the North East, either to the Magpies or Sunderland. But Wigan’s asking price and the 25-year-old’s wage demands have seen both clubs pull out of the running for his signature. The Black Cats are not in a position to make a late bid for N’Zogbia and Bruce will be forced to watch as the player he took from Newcastle to Wigan moves on. N’Zogbia turned down the chance to work with Villa boss Alex McLeish last summer, when the winger couldn’t agree terms with the-then Birmingham boss. The player could still reject Villa’s advances and opt to leave Wigan on a Bosman in 12 months time. But with a bumper five-year offer on the table, N’Zogbia looks set to move to Villa Park. Sunderland have not made a bid for N’Zogbia all summer, despite the France international being one of Bruce’s principle targets since becoming Black Cats boss two years ago. N’Zogbia thought he would be on his way to Wearside at the end of the season, particularly after Sunderland were flush with cash following the sale of Jordan Henderson. But Sunderland were taken aback when they were informed from N’Zogbia’s camp that the player would require wages of £65,000 a week – rather than the £40,000 they had originally been expecting to pay. Such a salary would have smash Sunderland’s wage structure and the club were not willing to contemplate it. After bringing in nine new players over the summer, boss Bruce doesn’t have that sort of money to spend on a transfer fee either. Bruce has been told he needs to offload the likes of Nyron Nosworthy, Matt Kilgallon, George McCartney and Marcos Angeleri before Sunderland re-enter the transfer market. And although Bruce concedes Sunderland are still lacking a natural left winger, he is unlikely to recruit any more fresh faces before the end of August. Bruce has no replacement for N’Zogbia in mind, despite Sunderland being linked with Leeds wide man Max Gradel. The 23-year-old has been touted to several Premier League clubs by his agent and although he would offer Sunderland some much-needed pace, he is naturally right-footed. Meanwhile, Sunderland have announced keeper Craig Gordon will keep the number one shirt next season. The Black Cats have released a select few of their squad numbers, with Gordon handed one, Simon Mignolet staying at 22 and new signing Keiren Westwood given the number 20 shirt.
So what how has he been the main target, and yet no bid was put in? We need to off-load but there seems to be a lack of a clubs lining up to take them superstars......... This is good news.
Yeah, sounds strange, has to be financial reasons and we'll probably never know the full ins-and-outs of it. Definately seems to be a lack of clubs after our deadwood! Maybe as the transfer market picks up towards its close we'll get a few bids in for some of them.
Im quite concerned hearing the rumours coming from the club, we have accumulated large transfer fees for Judas Bent and Jordan Henderson but have spend very little of the money received for those two players, and we hear we dont have money to spend on players. IMO we are not as strong a team as we were last year and if we dont add at least a striker + left sided Midfielder we can kiss another top 10 finish goodbye.
Well read into it what you will but I was reading a few articles yesterday making out that Bruce was still very aware of needing another striker and was still very, very interested in Crouch. 10 million was the figure quoted, now I'm not saying this is the reason for no bidding elsewhere but it is a possibility, time will tell I guess.
Yeah time will tell but I have a feeling that we wont see anymore players coming into the SOL, However Mr Quinn/Bruce you can happily prove me wrong
I've mentionned it before I think. When Bent left, Quinny made some comment about how it helped the clubs financial viability - I can't remember the exact words. Plus we would still have a big chunk owing to Spurs from when we originally signed Bent. So I took that to mean that not a lot of that money would be available to Bruce. Remember, since Keane's demise we have only spent what we have received in fees. The 13m for Gyan was financed by 5m for Cana and 8m for Jones. If reports are correct then we got 16/18m for Henderson. Most of that if not all has been spent on Wickham & Gardner. I reckon Wickham has been the 'marquee' signing. I can see a couple of loans coming in to swell the numbers. Whilst this is maybe not 'ideal', Bruce's hands will be tied financially. We could not go on spending money like water the way Keane did. We ain't got it! Income/Turnover/ Merchandising needs to increase. But we should all remember that we have made enormous progress these last 5 years.
God there's some crap in the press.. Who says we are not in a poisition to make bids for players?? Sunderland? Quinny? Short?? or the press? We have spent less than the 20m recouped on Henderson so far and still have the money from the Bent transfer and I have read nothing to say that we can't spend it. guess it's a case of whether we will spend it and I'm sure we will if the right offer arises. Hope he tells villa to do one and signs for us on a free at the end of the season!!
in my post, I made a reference to Quinn's comments after the Bent sale. It wasn't a press article it was a radio/tv interview. He never said we couldn't spend the money. He said the sale helped the club's financial viability. Read into that what you will ............ Perhaps it was needed to help pay off the debt accumulated by Keane..
Stories starting to go round about Crouch getting a 9 million price put on his head as Newcastle apparently have shown an interest. Wonder if Mr B will be bidding on the big man ....
i can't believe any of this, if we hadn't sold henderson are they saying we'd have had nowt to spend? we've paid 8m for wickham, 5m for gardner, 2m for wong don, 1.5m for el mohamady, 6m for brown and o'shea and the rest were frees totalling 22.5m, so we've spent around 3m plus the henderson money. Are they saying we only had around 3m to spend before the henderson sale? i know there's wages to consider but there's money still available if you ask me like, what a load of ****ing bollocks
Bruce has no replacement for N’Zogbia in mind, what a load of bollocks!! he will surely have two players at least lined up, incase he doesnt get his man..... lads how do you highlight certain parts of the post ??
This could be extremely clever tactics by Bruce and Quinn. By not bidding for Nzog it makes it look like were tight on money, if we had made a big offer and not got him another club would have insisted on similar money for another player. We will sign another player, I am sure of that and I bet we get them for the right price. Quinn talked about August for the next signing and I think that will be true because we need to offload a few to free up wages first.
he knows **** all, what a ****ing tosser he is, horsewill's no better either, only bernie slaven comes out of that show with any credit and he's a scotsman who played for ireland, who doesn't know who he supports boro or celtic ffs, how anyone can listen to this ****e is beyond me and the ****ing callers are just as bad rant over
