Sunderland have confirmed the release of out-of-contract quartet Wes Brown, Danny Graham, Steven Fletcher and Steve Harper. The Black Cats today released their annual retained list of players, with four members of the first-team squad formally parting ties with the club when their deals expire at the end of this month. As expected, centre-half Brown, strikers Graham and Fletcher, plus third-choice keeper Harper are all leaving the Stadium of Light. Brown is the longest-serving player among that quartet after the ex-England international has spent the last five years with Sunderland following a £1million move from Manchester United. The 36-year-old's previous deal expired last summer, but he was given a 12-month extension with a view to being a back-up option and he started six games last season. The Sunderland careers of Graham and Fletcher effectively came to an end in January when they headed out on loan to Blackburn and Marseille respectively. They both leave for nothing after Sunderland had invested around £17million in bringing the pair to Wearside. And ex-Newcastle stopper Harper also leaves the club after arriving in January as a back-up option to Vito Mannone and Jordan Pickford.
Retained list announced Published: 10 June, 2016 by Sunderland AFC List of retained players confirmed. Sunderland AFC today confirmed the club’s retained player list for the 2016-17 season. The list shows those players currently under contract with Sunderland AFC, or who have contract offers pending. Players out of contract as of June 30, 2016 include Wes Brown, Steven Fletcher, Danny Graham and Steve Harper. BEADLING, Tom BORINI, Fabio BRIDCUTT, Liam BUCKLEY, Will CATTERMOLE, Lee DEFOE, Jermain GIACCHERINI, Emanuele GREENWOOD, Rees GOMEZ, Jordi GOOCH, Lynden HONEYMAN, George KABOUL, Younes KHAZRI, Wahbi KIRCHHOFF, Jan KONE, Lamine LARSSON, Sebastian LENS, Jeremain MANNONE, Vito MAVRIAS, Charalampos MATTHEWS, Adam O’SHEA, John PICKFORD, Jordan RODWELL, Jack ROBSON, Josh ROBSON, Tom STRYJEK, Maksymilian VAN AANHOLT, Patrick VERGINI, Santiago WATMORE, Duncan DoF and managers come and go and they all leave a constant stream of ****e which we struggle to move. Sam has his work cut out. One thing is for sure, this is the best contract most of them will ever earn. We won't be getting shot unless we contribute wages for them to play for someone else. Same **** different close season. Can't keep sacking managers and changing infrastructure anymore.
If Sam could get Jermaine Lens to sort his head out then I think we should keep him, but it is a big if. The rest youve highlighted can go.
Must be 35-40 million in transfer fees alone there in the highlighted lads, thats before wages. Scary really.
I reckon more around the 20m mark. That's not the problem though, the problem is getting them to take a pay cut and actually **** off.
Off the top of my head weren't they around: Buckley and Bridcutt - 2/3m Giach 6m Lens 6m Matthews 2m Rodwell 10m Mavrias - No idea Larsson, Gomez, Vergini - Free? (well we say free but it's never actually free is it) That's high 20's even ignoring signing on fees. For 'free' transfers that tends to be more. However, it is dwarfed by the TV rights this year so no worries, they have in varying degrees played parts in keeping you in the league. Larsson in particular I think gets a raw deal from some of your fans.
I reckon we are not the only club that is suffering from the Bosman Legacy. No wonder player's agents thrive.
When you add in what we paid for Johnson thats the neck end of £27m down the swanney in less than 6 months
Suspect without Johnson you would have got relegated. Could probably say the same for Fletcher. Graham gave you nothing.
I don't think Fletcher did a lot apart from against you at Sol -see what you mean about Johnson but I was thinking more about sell on value. I know you will not get what you pay but at least if we had got something. In Johnsons case a couple of snouts would have done
Or if they justified the price tag and wages then relegation battles wouldn't have been issue anyway. Still, We paid the fees and wages, nobody to blame for the waste other than the running of the club. Anyway, that's shot of the big money MoN flops. Next the last of the PDC/Di fanti and Poyet signings to get shot of.
WTF went wrong with Fletcher? He was electric at the start. Then he got injured playing for Scotland and it all seemed to go downhill from there.
Weve wasted millions in shyte signings but weve also gained millions due to our end of season survival push thats kept us in the Prem. Lets not dwell on paying 12m for Fletch and 6m for Jozy etc. Its all part of the Sunderland supporters fun ride. Never a dull moment .
Yup those millions have at least meant survival, how many million did Newcastle spend in January and still go down?
I know we've done some ****e deals over the years , but swapping Altidore for Defoe has to be one of the better deals the club has ever done.
We are slowly turning the duffers out though, that is all important, the attitude of the players at the end of the season was brilliant, Fletch and AJ have not been missed, if Sam can get them into the same frame of mind from the start, plus one or two instant injections of class into the starting line up, we should be OK. I am looking forward with optimism to the season ahead. Sam is the key.
