Yeah, unfortunately for me the last remaining droplet of BC's credibility went out the window when he stated we were due to play West Ham on the Saturday last game of the season instead of the Sunday. Schoolboy error for such a try-hard!
I think a lot of people here are grossly over simplifying the effects of buying a South Korean player. To use the popular internet meme (and at 100% risk of sounding condescending I know this will go over 99% of your aging heads) people seem to think this is the effect: 1. Buy player of Asian origins. 2.??????? 3.PROFIT Just look at Lee-Dong Gook. Hardly made Boro the flavour of the week did it? (The flavour Im referring to is obviously dog) Which brings me to some odd racial profiling that seems to be taking place here. People mention how the market in Asia is still untapped and signing and Asian player can potentially exploit this. Well I think people have forgotten Asia is not a country! Seems some people are going along on the idea that "Oh if we sign that Korean dude we will be well popular in Asia because theyre all the same right?" Korea has (if my memory serves me correctly) around 50 million people. Its a fair number but hardly world stage. If we sign a Korean player football fans in China wont care, or Japan, only KOreans. Itd probably mean people supported us lightly, something like the support we had in Trinidad an Tobago when Jones and Stern John, Carlos Edwards were with us. If we want to exploit the Asia market, either sign a Chinese player as football is popular there, although Man Utd are well established there. Id say a better bet would be India, where many people are only now discovering football, and the population is over 1 billion also. And even then, one of the key reasons Man Utd are so popular there is their success. People there are football fans, but not dedicated in the way we are. They just want a simple team, who will win, and not give them the grief of losing. They just want trophies and a big name to associate with. Unfortunately unless we competed in Europe every year, we couldn't be that big name. Even reading opinions of Ghana fans on forums, on the subject of SAFC and Gyan, whilst they were fairly supportive during our first half of the season, opinion was SO quick to change as soon as the going got tough. Even now just read opinion threads on Gyan and Sunderland by Ghana fans, and the consensus is usually "Hes too good" or "Sunderland arent good enough". So all Im saying is, I wish things were as simple as the formula I laid out at the beginning of my post, but seriously guys, it probably wouldnt make a grain of difference if we sign this guy or not.
MackemMatty...I stated earlier in this thread that you shouldn't just buy a player to exploit market potential....Players should be bought only if they would improve the team regardles of nationality etc.
