He used to be exactly what we need now - hard working competitor who helps others play, but I’m not sure he’s still that player with the same engine.
The DM position still needs a bit of legs, not in the way a box-to-box 90 minutes football does, but in shorter bursts of pace to deal with counter attacks, an intelligent player will mitigate some of this risk with excellent positional play and reading of the game, but he will still need some pace. I haven't watched the likes of Cork and Norwood recently, do they have anything left in the legs?
Don't know about Cork but Sheffield fans seem to think Norwoods declined a lot physically last 2 seasons.
Signing people that age is a bit risky to say the very least. Short contract might counter that but if turns up without legs we aren't going to move forward this season off the back of his signing.
****ing hell. Wrexham fans now have Parkinson, McLean, Fletcher, McFadzean and now Dobson to suffer. That's a who's who of SAFC ****e right there...
I dunno. Evans could still do the job in those short spells at the end of the season. For me, a good DM has a 6th sense and can sniff out danger. Let Neil/Rigg/Jobe etc do his running for him....
I think there are european strikers out there for 5m or less we could be looking at, ones who have a solid goalscoring return behind them too. Zan Celar - 21/22 29 games, 10 goals - 22/23 30 games, 16 goals - 23/24 36 games, 14 goals (his valuation is 2-2.25m euros) - would be a better option than every striker at the club
Bit concerned about 'experience = old'. For me, there's a less acceptable risk involved in these sorts of signings than there is with signing prospects. Either way we run the risk of not getting what we need in the team for that season. At least with a young player there is always the possibility of success the next year - and all while they cost you a lower wage and retain an amount of transfer value. Get a senior pro wrong (as we undoubtedly did with Dack) and you have absolutely nothing to show for it other than a year of an expensive contract. We don't specifically need experience in midfield. What we need is a willingness to do the dirty work and an instinct to cover and sniff out danger. And while those traits often come from more experienced players, they can certainly be found in a younger one too. Indeed youthful mobility could compensate for the odd positional error. No good being able to sense danger due to your levels of experience if you're too immobile to get there and do something about it.
Luke Onion has those abilities. He’s experienced and his willingness to do the dirty work is there for all to see. He’s fully fit. He could be the one instead of oldies like Cork or some of the others mentioned. He’s also never let us down wherever he’s been played and gets better the more he’s played there. If he does go into that midfield position we could use the money saved towards an even better CF.
Looks like Hull are selling Greaves and Philogene. They've now lost 63 of the 68 goals they scored last season and barely have any players left from what was a decent season. Also looks like they will be selling Ryan Giles who they signed permanently just last month. For all the praise I seen them get for being 'ambitious' last season it hasn't exactly went well.
We do need experience in midfield though, where else are we going to add it? O’nien is clearly staying so the CB pairing won’t change, the majority of the team won’t change if we’re honest and as it stands it’s nowhere near good enough for automatics. When experience is spoken about people start having a meltdown over us signing anyone over the age of 30 for some strange reason. We started Neil, Rigg and Jobe against Southampton at St Mary’s and they could’ve put about 8 past us.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/s...-bris-jack-clarke-sunderland-transfer-stance/ Quotes from Le Bris: ..... He admits the future of his stars is, to an extent, out of his hands because if a Premier League club offers mega money, Sunderland will inevitably have their hands forced. But the priority on Wearside, says the new head coach, is success on the pitch, so there's a determination to keep the club's best players. "It's difficult to have guarantees because the market can be crazy sometimes, but I feel the ambition," said Le Bris. "Obviously the market and transfer window will not be as we'd expect it just now but we will adapt with the circumstances and at the end I think we'll have a balanced team with players who are able to play our style of play and to perform on the pitch." Transfer speculation and uncertainty is nothing new for Clarke, who has been in-demand for the last 18 months or so. Le Bris is well aware of the importance of keeping the winger this summer. He said: "We like good players – the players who are able to dribble, attack the box, score and give the last key passes. They are very important for the team. "He is an important player – other players are very important for the team also. If we are able to keep the core of this team, I think it will be very helpful to enable us to perform quickly, with one, two or three players more. He is very important, as are all the players."
For me that's less about the lack of experience of that trio, and more about the lack of someone who has the ability to sniff out danger and most importantly loves to do the graft in midfield. Take one of those out and add someone like Tyler Morton (someone who has played less than 2/3 of the pro games that Dan Neil has) and we're FAR more solid as a unit.
I've always been one who would never have O'Nien in midfield. He always used to strike me as someone who lacked the discipline to sit in. He tended to chase the game too much and that has previously led to his midfield performances being pretty dreadful (bar a couple of specific man-marking jobs in the L1 playoffs). That being said, he's smart and he's adapted to centre half far better than I thought he would (where he's definitely an upper champ level now). I wouldn't bet against him being able to adapt again - although it could be very rough, too.
I've said this many times but age doesn't equal experience. Put a midfielder in there who has plenty of games played behind them that is a genuine defensive midfielder and we would have been much more solid, the age doesn't mean ****
