First article in a long time for me so may be a little rusty.....please be kind. I like to think of myself as pretty football savvy, having played at an okay level and still work in the industry as a consultant/agent (unfortunately not in England so I have no 'ITK pieces!!). I thought I would give my two pennies on the prospect of Fletcher, and for that matter any player coming to Sunderland and how they would do. When you put aside individual superstars such as Messi, Ronaldo, etc, football players become more of a component to a team, rather than an individual. Each player has certain attributes that he can bring to a team, to give a a few simple examples Sessegnon=creativity/pace. Mclean=crossing, pace, cattermole=enforcer, yellow cards and so on. Obviously some players have more attributes than others, or do their certain 'thing' at a higher level, and thus they become more sought after because they can, bring more dimensions to a team. Finally when you field a team of 11, you have a balance of however amount of pace, creativity, aerial ability so on. With any team whether it be Barcelona or Sunderland it's important to have players of varying attributes to complement each other. Pique is paired with Puyol because he has the skill and guile the Puyol doesn't possess, however Puyol brings leadership and power to their partnership. Now we take our team, and I think rather than names we have to look at what attributes the team needs. For me it's creativity, pace, passing ability, finishing, presence in the final third (my god that's a lot!!). Now if we can have all of those things in 2 players, then great, but given our budget and status, finding players with that many attributes willing to come to Sunderland are close to 0. Therefore we hope that we can bring in 3, or 4 or however many to cover these areas. Now you take Fletcher. Put aside the fact he's Scottish (harder done than said!), that he played for Wolves, or that he's a balding 25 year old, he's a player with presence in the box and statistically a good finisher. I know it's not exciting, and perhaps a bit too analytical but this is how I believe it should be viewed. He ticks two boxes that we're desperately empty. With chances being born from Sessgnon, Larsson and McClean, there is no reason this player shouldn't score 15 goals barring injuries. Now a 15 goal player in the premier league is someone any team would take and we are no different. I honestly think the reason why we have so much debate on this board is because each person views the team's needs, and what the player would bring, differently. I think the one thing we do have to our advantage is a manager who understands his team, and knows how to put these components to a good balance, and that is absolutely MASSIVE. I cannot stress this enough. He is the one man with the magic wand who can bring all these varying abilities together and create one team. As for the lack of transfer's thus far, I honestly think this is nothing to worry about. I can tell you first hand that transfers are not done in 1, or 2 days. It is a long drawn out process that can easily take weeks if not months to complete. And as for the lack of gossip, this is simply down to the agents, and teams doing their jobs and keeping information confidential. Every transfer document that I have seen doing this business has a confidentiality agreement until completed, and honestly it surprises me how much transfer gossip gets out there. We have to be patient and hope the boys in the big offices understand the problems we have at hand and fill them up with capable players. All about ticking the boxes, and whether you like him or not, I think Fletcher does enough to warrant a transfer to our great club (no sarcasm intended!).
If your an agent, even though it's not in The UK, you must know some UK based agents ? Give us some gossip.
Jesustheconman great reasoned arguments that will get no debate from me. hit the nail square on the head.
Great Read that fella..!!! It's seems from the read that the cobwebs were not actually attached after all. Nicely balanced thread that.
More from you please. I feel soo much better gonna go and have a cup of tea, why was I beginning to worry?
This a hundred million times over. This my friend sums up everything perfectly for me however, I do have one massive complaint. You should post much more often imo.
thanks for the positive reviews, now I better not be wrong and they better bring in the reinforcements! @mackemoneil: unfortunately most agents keep the cards close to their chest for fear of losing the deal if it gets out. I do however have one friend who represents a lot of African internationals that said Sunderland were in and after one of his clients (although this was months ago and thus useless.....). I do think with the sponsorship they will look to bring in one new african recruit, but then again that's just me being logical.
not that far back mate! this was about may and he's also the one told me about the Invest for Africa deal.
Interesting? Isn't the lad Kone African? We've been heavily linked with him? As for Ryan Noble. I've watched that kid for over 3 years. Was an outstanding finisher at 16 and this is the year he simply has to break into the first team squad or leave. He deserves the chance imo.
I think everyone who has red and white veins hopes that young Mr Noble can step-up into the first team and make an impact. Judging from our friendlies so far getting the ball into the back of the net continues to be our big glaring and obvious problem. My guess would be that Noble would initially at least come on in the last 20 minutes the intention being he would use his pace when the defenders are a little bit knackered and take it from there. Unless he goes out on loan (to Wolves?) to increase his experience. Previous fans of clubs that MoN has been say he generally leaves it till the last minute and buys British. Does that mean we have already conceded the 3 points to Arsenal?
Having spent the past week on the side-lines with sick kids, what time Iâve had to read has consisted of thread after thread of infested slagging matches so to read your post is both refreshing & rewarding. Don't leave it so long till next time. Many many thanks
