What, more players linked with a move away?

We know Kone, Ndong, Rodwell and Asoro could be off now this, as expected.



Don't want to be getting rid of the likes of Watmore and Asoro. Asoro could want away but I hope Duncan wants to stay at least. Lets face it they'll be gone with first offer if Short has his way.

 

Was Brighton boss Chris Hughton checking out Sunderland’s Duncan Watmore on Saturday?

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There have been confirmed sightings of Brighton boss Chris Hughton at Sunderland’s game with Brentford on Saturday, but who was he checking out?

by James Henchard@MrHenchard Oct 23, 2017, 6:30am BST

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Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images
Brighton and Hove Albion boss Chris Hughton was spotted at Griffin Park on Saturday taking in Sunderland’s draw with Brentford, sparking rumours that he was there to check out Black Cats attacker Duncan Watmore.
Observant fans had spotted Hughton before the game and the sighting was confirmed by the Sun reporter Alan Nixon on social media.
With gossip suggesting that the Seagulls boss had hastened across London to check out an unidentified home player along with Sunderland’s live wire forward, the prospect of losing Watmore so soon after his re-emergence will alarm fans on Wearside.

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Chris Hughton
Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images
The Black Cats forward made his third appearance of the season since returning from a 10 month lay-off and was instrumental in Sunderland’s attacking moves, opening up the Brentford defence with his direct play.
It was Watmore who skipped past the Bees back-line only to be hauled down by one-time Sunderland target Ryan Woods inside the penalty area for Lewis Grabban to convert the spot-kick and hand the Black Cats a two goal initiative on the stroke of half time.
The former England Under-21 international is one of the few saleable assets in the Sunderland squad who could attract attention from Premier League sides in the January window, so interest from newly promoted Brighton would be of little surprise.

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Watmore playing for the England U21s last year before his injury lay-off
Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
Hughton’s side have made a good start to life in the big league, and are 12th in the table having won three and drawn two of their opening 9 games.
A three-goal win at West Ham at the weekend has earned the Seagulls boss universal plaudits and a growing recognition which has sometimes been lacking during his two decades as a coach.
It’s now nearly six years since Hughton was sacked by Newcastle, and his success in getting Brighton to the Premier League will have been noted by big club and international chairmen who may currently be considering half-term managerial replacements.

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Hughton and Steve Bruce were the managers when Newcastle hosted Sunderland in October 2010
Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images
Though interest in Watmore will come as little surprise to Sunderland fans, the departure of the popular attacking player would be a huge blow to morale on Wearside for a fan base who have suffered the ignominy of a drop from the Premier League only to find their club in the bottom-three of the division below as October draws to an end.
There may be nothing in it of course. Hughton remains a popular figure at Brentford having turned out for the club in the season before he retired in 1993 and he is a frequent visitor to Griffin Park.
Ominously though, few observers of the goings-on at the Stadium of Light would expect Sunderland to put up much of a fight to keep hold of Watmore if a Premier League side come calling with cash on offer.

 

They may help his career.

Decent little club, good manager.

 

Alan Nixon the Newcastle fan wrote it. So even if someone had told him to his face Hughton was there watching a Brentford player he'd still lie and write an article against Sunderland

 

I dont see anyone taking a chance on Duncan until he proves he's over his serious knee injury and its early days in that respect.
However just look at our record with Henderson and Pickford for selling good young'uns and this has got to be a worry in January should Duncan prove he's back including him scoring a few goals.

Mentioning Pickford I just wonder if he wishes he'd stayed put now that its gone tits up at Everton, its a funny game is football with no guarantees that things will work out the way you want. He'd definitely have secured us more points than we have now after our goalkeeping errors so far this season.

 

I doubt he had much say on the matter mate.

 

No chance. He's still playing Premier League football for a team who will now probably fly up the league?

 

I think we’ll have to bite the bullet lads.

Any player worth anything is likely to be sold.
Any player showing a bit of form will be sold.
Put an offer in and Short will sell anyone.

If someone puts in an offer of say £5 million for Duncan, that’s £5 million for Short and a step nearer selling the club as he gets his money.
If Duncan is replaced (big if) it will be a free transfer on low wages.

That’s the way we are going now.

A couple of weeks ago I put a tongue in cheek post up about how we would get on in Division 1 next season and said that if we spent the same as this season we might stay up (in Division 1)
I never thought we would be relegated to Division 1 but as the games go by it’s becoming a very real possibility.
We might have some big (ish) names in our squad but we are not performing and nothing much seems to be changing.
It’s pitiful what’s happening to us and we can do very little about any of it.
We can cheer the lads on and maybe get a few results but I fear the management would probably then think things were going alright and feel they are doing the right thing and somehow feel vindicated and carry on.
A new manager (who?) might make an initial impact but the bottom line is we are skint, heavily in debt and have no self belief.

I have no idea what will happen to us, I just hope that we’ve hit the bottom now and it will start to improve but I’ve no faith in those running the club.

 

I'm sick of biting the ****ing bullet. Can't get the damn taste of bullet out of my mouth.

Having said that I'm sure you're right and there's countless more **** sandwiches we'll have to eat and ask for more please.

 

I have been a fan of Hughton since his Newcasltle days and have had him in my shortlist everytime we have changed manager since then, he is now out of our league thanks to the alternatives recruited even though initially I was happy with the choices made we will never know what might have been with Hughton at the helm, he has certainly done well in the mean time. Secondly, 5m for a fit Watmore is giving him away not selling him, its madness, 20m is more realistic, but this is Sunderland, and this reporter is not to be trusted.

 

Let's hope this goes nowhere I mentioned before about Watmore but it was only my thoughts. Hence it's vital we start winning or we'll end up a division 1 club in complete disarray.

 

Agree about Houghton and what could be us being fleeced as we were with one of the best keepers in the world JP - a steel by Everton. EDIT Watmore to say on this
Mentioning Everton if SG gets pushed out what about Koeman?

 

Our defence would play much better knowing they had a dependable keeper behind them. The quality of Pick ford's distribution would transform us imo. But the club and got £30k so it's OK

 

It's get to a similar state as when Mackemenemy took us down as we had some older big name players and "were too good to go down", - what an empty phrase. Now we need at least 7pts before the international break

 

£20m ??? Calm down. £5m would be a fair price for him. He's pretty much done nothing of note. He's raw potential.

If we reinvested the £5m it would be a good deal. Jordan Hugill is out of contract in the summer and Preston might want to cash in rather than lose him for free.

 

As of now I cant see why any Championship player would jump at the chance to play for us. Most would see us as a step backwards.

 

Hugill may want to play for Grayson again. I agree though we are not a pull for decent players atm

 

He's employed to keep the physio's diary busy for the week.

 

Let's put this into context:

• Article written by Alan Nixon
• Chris Hughton was sighted at a game - Nixon decides to link him with Watmore with no background story
• It's clickbait (Yes I clicked on it but realised as soon as I saw Nixon's name that it was probably made up bollocks)
• It was written by Alan Nixon
• Nobody has come out and stated that he was there watching any player - he might have just been watching the match generally (Occasionally I hear that football people do that)
• Did I mention that it was written by Alan Nixon?