Excellent post canarian and I think most on here would agree with your choice of those who should go - I'm sure it was just an oversight, but I'd add RvW to your list. Yes, it is going to be a tricky 'balancing act' brining in our loanees and will Maddison live up to his promise, or will he go the same way as RvW???? Lots of unanswered questions and of course the MOST important one is - who will be our manager when we kick off next season???? Thanks for your concern Dave, but I didn't hurt myself and I'm sure we'll always be grateful to DM for rescuing the club etc - it's going to be an interesting close season with some major changes afoot.
I'm hoping Naismith has a relegation clause in his contract so we can get rid of that waste of space too. Yes, canarian Hoolahan will be far too old. This is so depressing after the euphoria of last May, to think that in all probability we'll be waking up Thursday morning with our beloved club in the Chumpionship
The Naismith transfer was driven by Alex Neil, it just shows his judgement is badly floored, they should both piss off! His only true good buy in 18 months has been Klose. Not a good ratio!
I think Brady falls into that catagory too, great at times but then misused too often. Others we should wait and see, youngsters Maddison and Godfrey may yet prove to be shrewd pieces of business. Bah!
As I expected, Big Sam's vast experience would see him through. I know mathematically Sunderland are not safe, but managing Defoe properly shows what can be done at this level. Sadly, the club spent 'big' far too late and no striker. I'm sure Hooper would've got us goals but that's for another debate.
You've been shouting for all and sundry to be sacked, you just have to watch what you wish for! Now DM has gone, we are destined to return to being "little old Norwich!"
What happens if the next CEO is even sharper and shrewder than DM? Knowing our shower in the boardroom it's bound to be more of a sow's ear than silk purse appointment, but until we see who gets the 'gig' it's far too soon to start casting aspersions and speculating about the club going backwards
Defoe has been at Sunderland for a year and a half, long before Big Sam arrived. IMO, both Sunderland and Newcastle have PL squads which have been underperforming, but have now raised their performance and found some form. Our squad has perhaps 6 or 7 PL quality players, 3 of whom are injured. The others are performing, but just don't have another level to go up to. For that reason I disagree with the 'summer clearout' call. We are not going to recruit PL players in the summer, so would just be compounding our problem with a clearout. We need new players, but they are likely to be older players cast off by PL clubs or young players with potential as yet unproven. Hopefully we have some of those already in our young players like the Murphys, Toffolo, Maddison and others, bu that is the reality of our situation.
I'm not sure we ever stopped being "little old Norwich" we certainly handled the summer transfer window in a L.O.N. fashion. I think it is most likely that McNally has quit because inspite of the stated ambition from the club to establish itself in the PL, the club are not willing to be bold enough to meet that ambition. Bah!
Exactly how I see it, Commandant. Which is sad and ironic in equal measure. Similar reasons to Lambert leaving after such a blinding three year tenure, he felt he'd reached a ceiling beyond which, the prudence of L.O.N. was not prepared to spend the money required to keep pace with what everyone else was doing. So we lagged behind, just like this season. If you're not prepared to back ambition with some wedge, somebody else soon will and often they make a far more compelling reason to join them than 'solvent but tight-fisted' NCFC Extreme thanks to McNally for 7, erm, interesting years, such a shame he was unable to do his job any longer due to constraints largely out of his control.
Whilst i agree with your post in the main (Can't quite figure out who the 6-7 PL quality players are?) You're right, the vast majority of this squad got us out of the championship before and most are good enough to do it again. We do need to trim out some of the deadwood though. There are players who the manager plainly doesn't think are good enough and we need to get rid of them. If we can enhance our starting eleven then we must do so and the obvious positions still remain the same, striker and CB. As you say we won't be able to buy a PL level player as they will not want to join us. But we can do as Burnley did, flex our parachute payment financial muscles and pick off some of the best the championship has to offer, like Gray. Players who might be able to make the step up. The only way to make room for the youth is to cull some of the deadwood, I imagine that there will be some like Mulumbu, Lafferty and RvW who are just not gonna do better wages wise and we'll be stuck with them, but hopefully we can offload a few. We need to evolve the squad so that we are better placed to go again in the PL if we are lucky enough to go up again. I just hope we have learnt that buying bang average squad players like; Mulumbu and Dorrans is a complete waste. They have to be better than what we have! Bah!
In fairness I'm just spitballing. He may as easily have made bold promises of keeping us up this season and establishing us in the PL only to have failed. I think he is probably a man of bold promises and he could either have been pressed because of this seasons failure, or fallen on his sword because of it. But I guess we'll never know, but I don't want my musings to become accepted wisdom without a jot of evidence! That said, bloody Smith and Jones and their L.O.N ways! Bah!
It's been suggested elsewhere, General, that a second relegation on his C.V. so quickly was possibly the catalyst for his departure. Either that or wasting £8.5 m of L.O.N's hard-earned pay on that useless lump Naismith. That would haunt most people and make them want to impale themselves on something very sharp!
But surely that was him backing his manager, what a good CEO should do, it was I'd assume Neil's call. So if anyone should go because of Naismith it would be Neil. But I still think Naismith can come good. I think we as an attacking force have lost our way to such an extent that it is impossible for anyone to play well or shine. It is because of that, that I would not lament Neil getting the bullet. I think he still has promise but he has simply got to go back to the basics that his earlier success was built on and hopefully then recruit players better equiped to implement them. Bah!
I realised after I had posted it, so had to edit it. Thanks for pointing it out though. It clearly shows he didn't even have to buy a striker. A proven one was already there. Which begs the question, would Norwich have attracted a proven striker at the top level anyway? I think it's more difficult these days. As I said in an earlier post, getting the mix of youth and experience will be crucial next season.
My take on the 6-7 PL players includes Klose, Tettey, and Brady first, then it could include those who have succeeded in the PL but also been part of two relegations, like Ruddy, Howson, Redmond, Martin, Bassong and Olsson. Beyond those, there are then players with considerable PL experience elsewhere like Naismith, Mulumbu and Dorrans who could be included as well on that basis. My 6-7 was just a ball-park figure from those. Some on here have chosen Naismith as the current scapegoat, but Iike you, I think he could still do a good job for us. I felt that Mulumbu and Dorrans were good signings at the time, but somehow they haven't lived up to that, but they also could come good next year. What we need to focus on is a good, goal scoring striker to provide competition for Jerome and a quality CB if Klose departs or even if he stays. If Redmond and/or Brady leave then we'll need quality replacements in the wide positions, but the emphasis should be on quality, not quantity, IMO.
Your argument is more valid if you look at Kirchoff and Khazri who were signed in January and have made a huge difference. I still think that Sunderland's success has come from getting their PL squad to raise their performance levels, which would be more difficult with our mix of PL and Championship level players at this stage of the season, which is why I never thought a change of manager would produce a comparable 'bounce' for us.
