Liam Bridcutt is moving closer to becoming the first Sunderland departure of the David Moyes era. The Scotland international midfielder is not needed on Wearside and was not used at all by the first team in pre-season - missing out on the club’s recent trip to France. Leeds United have been keen to bring him back to Elland Road after a successful loan spell there last season and it now seems that a deal between the two clubs is moving closer. The Yorkshire Evening Post’s respected journalist Phil Hay reports that the two clubs are very close to a deal as negotiations have reached an ‘advanced stage’. With Sunderland so keen to sell and Leeds so keen to buy, the deal is thought to now just rest on the Yorkshire side hoping that Sunderland will subsidise the shortfall of the wage difference that the 27-year-old would have to take to join Leeds. With no future at the Stadium of Light,Bridcutt is keen on the return to Leeds. He made 24 appearances last season there and, despite only moving there in the November, impressed enough to make a five-man nomination list for player of the year. Leeds’ manager at the time Steve Evans said that he wanted to sign Bridcutt permanently this summer, but he was replaced by former Swansea boss Garry Monk ahead of the new campaign. At the weekend Monk refused to be drawn on speculation that Bridcutt was also a target for him, however, telling LUTV: “I don’t talk about players. We keep that in-house. You [journalists] will be the first ones to know as soon as a player comes through the door. “I think it’s disrespectful to talk about players, disrespectful to the club. We work in a good way and keep our business how it should be.” A deal now appears close, however.
This business of subsidising wages irritates me. Other clubs sell players, we have to pay the buggers to leave.
Weve given too many lucrative contracts to Championship standard players and were paying the price now. Its our own fault. The club we loan them to pay them what theyre really worth and we have to make the rest up to honour their contract. Danny Graham was on about 35k a week last season when we loaned him to Blackburn. I bet hes only on about 15k now hes signed for them permanantly.
Is that excluded players through the ranks who have appeared in the recent friendlies only? We can't afford to lose anyone now, even the likes of Mavrias, Gomez could be needed at this rate, it's an embarrassment now. Has any other club in PL history went through all of pre-season without a signing?
We seem to be down to our young guns as backup -it's looking very grim hope we are suprised by our youngsters. I think Buckley may pass us next year cos we seem to be on very dodgy ground - seems we are not able to compete financially or a manager who can get players to come to Sunderland But we are all used to this
Despite the reputation we seem to have garnered in the last 13 months we'd previously been shocking at buying players. A few years ago we went a year without signing a permanent transfer (we loaned one player in that time), it may actually have been 18 months if my memory serves me correctly but not certain.
