To convince Xhaka to sign I'd be offering him a £3m relegation release clause or something tiny like that. He'll be 33 this time next year and won't be worth much more. We should be making it easy for him to leave us if we go down, to mitigate any fears he has of spending his last years in the championship. Would make his signing an expensive "loan" essentially but the value / risk / reward upside if he helps keep us up is huge. Obviously along with any relegation release clauses it would need to be a hefty wage reduction as well.
Maybe if we sign him people will stop comparing us to Ipswich and Burnley they signed no near his level
Sunderland exploring move for Xhaka Latest from Sky Sports News' Keith Downie: Sunderland are exploring an ambitious move to sign Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Granit Xhaka. The Black Cats are interested in signing the 32-year-old Bundesliga winner to spearhead their Premier League return. Xhaka has three years left on his Leverkusen deal, but could be allowed to leave this window. Sunderland face competition from Saudi Arabia for the ex-Arsenal midfielder's signature. Xhaka is hugely experienced with 137 caps for Switzerland and fits the profile for Regis Le Bris’ young team. Sunderland have already spent £95m this summer ahead of their Premier League return. I wish when outlets reported our spend they'd also mention that we've made £40-45m worth of sales.
Didn’t Sacha say the fee would be around 10m? That’s not so expensive in today’s market so wonder if we are willing to offer big wages
Btw we are so under-represented in the national press. We literally only have Keith. We used to have Michael Walker, but he seems to have vanished (I hope he's ok). If you think the telegraph, the mail etc all have "local" correspondants but all of the north east ones are still pointed at Newcastle only. Keith gets a lot of stick but he's actually the only national person paying any attention. Even the Athletic for instance have 2 dedicated Leicester City reporters. We don't have any - they've been using Chris Weatherspoon who they employed as a finance writer, to do all their Sunderland "bits" alongside their bank writers. It needs fixing.