I think we can say that we Sunderland fans tend to face reality, yes we dream of Europe when we hit that 6th spot but at heart we accept the truth, hard as it can be. I think that this transfer window, so far and the excitement it is generating confirms our realist credentials but have the club got it right? In Larssen, Vaughn, Brown, O’Shea and Gardner we have brought in solid, experienced premiership players,quality yes but not that jump off your seat type of player. Whicham, Ji and Westwood bring potential but are all untried in the premiership, again good but again not that tingle down the spine feeling. I know we still have time and I think we would all be shocked if we did not get 2 more players in before the window closes, we all expect or maybe hope the last 2 will be those marquee signings, Sunderland and hope sort of fit like a glove. What we need to face up to, and I know we do, are a few sad truths, we wont attract the top players, we cant afford them and they would not come if we could. Even the second tier players, Crouch, Defoe and their like will take some persuading, we may love the northeast but I’m afraid they don’t, all this comes into play when Quinn and Bruce draw up their wish list and try to recruit, plus that nasty thing called money. So with all this in mind our leaders at the SoL seemed to go into this window knowing me needed bodies but taking note of two failings that became obvious during last season. Injuries caused us a major problem last season, one that nearly brought disaster, we can never buy with the guarantee of injury free players but we can hedge our bets. Now forgive me because an expert on player stats I’m not but I think I’m right that with the exception of Brown we have bought tough players with good records, feel free to correct me. This and the changes in the backroom staff will hopefully make next season a better one on the injury front, that and a more in depth squad. Bottle, character, guts, winning mentality, all things we seemed to miss far to often last season, you just done see it being a problem with our new recruits. I had to laugh when I read some comments about us taking Man U rejects. If you look at the medals and experience that our two rejects bring in the amount of years they have enjoyed playing for what some would argue is one of the best teams in the world, I can think of a lot worse places to bring rejects from. I get the feeling that the powers that be tried to bring in that flair that overseas players can bring, sadly its not what we need right now and the recruitment policy seems to have accepted that. In Gyan and Sessegon we have players who can offer that something very special and I know the other players can turn it on but we have gone for a solid spine of 100% players who will do the job on those wet cold Monday evenings in winter when things are not going right. Not for us Sunderland fans that sexy football, flowing end to end pretty stuff, no, its hard graft and never say die with some quality thrown in that excites us. We will soon find out if the mix is right, we know we will have our heart in mouth days but I have a sneaky feeling that the coming season will give me value for money on my season card.
Good post Syd. Sums up the work involved in bringing 'next level' players to the SoL. As for the hard graft, we've always loved a hard tackler at Sunderland but I loved some of the sexy, flowing football we played last season.
I think we will see a couple more in Syd. I agree with most of what you have said though. I for 1 am really looking forward to next season, I've already booked the mags game weekend off and I will be going to Stoke at home because I am up in the area to do the great north run.
Gutted as I won't be there to see it as I'll be flying home from Majorca. I'm just hoping that the texts I get once off the plane are from SAFC supporting friends and not those from the dark side. I'm still annoyed that we're playing Hibs, 45 minutes from me, the weekend I'm at a stag do in Leeds !!
I agree totally with the views in this thread that we have moved up a gear as a solid premiership outfit with these signings. They are all better than we had before - young enough for the longer term but experienced enough to take us throught the difficult matches - Brown and O'Shea will give us something we haven't had for some time, a winning mentallity. Unfortunately I've obviously been a Sunderland supporter for too long as I am still trying to actually really really believe what I believe ! I'm going to make the hibs friendly so hope to feed back some good feelings.
