Foregin Imports First off a great victory for the boys yesterday, I think the relief within the fans was fairly obvious both in the stadium and out. I wrote a subdued prematch article about the things I had hoped for going into the match and I was really pleased with what I saw. Clean sheet, bringing forwards into the attack and an overall desire to go forward. Now this article is a complete 180 from yesterday, it was actually brought on to me when I watched that Suarez play in the late kickoff. Like him or not I was so impressed with him, and thought he could walk on to most teams in the world. And perhaps may be out of season subject but I wanted to discuss transfers. I took a good look at the team sheet yesterday and we lined up MIg Oshea Turner Brown Ricco Sess Vaughan Colback Larsson Wickham Bendtner. For me this is a very decent squad but what did strike me was the amount of English, or English trained players we have. Of the starting eleven, 9 of them are either English, have premiership/championship experience and/or brought up in England. Now I think we all have a certain pride when it comes to the premier league and being a part of it. You often hear both fans and managers say the words, âhe has/hasnât got what it takes to play in the premiership.â There definitely is a certain footballing quality and mentality that is required at this level but I think then brings on the inflation for English players. I think there is a certain mentality of because the young English players are brought up watching/playing in the English game, surly they must be better than some lad from Estonia. Now to some extent this statement holds some truth, ofcourse it helps to be brought up in the unique style of the English game however I think the premium that it puts on the players price wise is simply ridiculous. If you take a look at some of the transfers of British players in past few seasons - Henderson 16m£, Phil Jones 16.5m£, Carroll 35m£, Craig Gardner 6m£, Downing 20m£, Milner18m£+Ireland, Glen Johnson 17.5 m£ , Bent 18m£ Some of the Foreign transfers- Suarez 22.8m£, Javier Hernandez 6m£, david silva 24m£, Sessegnon 6m£, Aguero 35m£, Cristiano Ronaldo (granted this was in 03) 12.24M£, Nani 17m£, Mata 23.5m£, Tiote 3.5M£, Cabaye 4.3m£, Van Persie (again this was in 04) 2.75m£, Gyan 13m£, Van de Vaart 8m£, Modric 16.5 m£, Obivously there are hundreds more players but you look at the two lists and it for me is ridiculous that difference in quality in terms of the price paid. We also have to take in to account that âtop 4â are in a different category money wise. However, even within our team you look at Craig Gardner and Sessegnon who we paid the exact same fee for. Now everyone has their own opinion on players but I think itâs fairly obvious that Sess is the far superior player. Yet we pay the same fee because Gardner has played in the premier league previously. Now the point I am getting at is that for a team such as ourselves who have money but is to a certain extent limited we have to look abroad for the players with that extra bit of quality. Putting a team of eleven foreigners is no solution but after developing a structure within the team, itâs important to dabble abroad. My guess is that Steve Bruce was hesitant with players abroad because he wanted to build that structure, and for me he has. He probably also wanted to keep things domestic after the failures of Da Silva, Riveros etc. However moving forward we have to go abroad. I look at Newcastle and what they have done in terms of scouting is second to no one. They have done the thorough scouting and worked hard to get the right price. As I have repeatedly said in previous long articles, I work in the industry and often hear rumours buzzing about. I have good contacts in Germany, Holland etc but I have never heard Sunderland mentioned. I have probably heard every other team in the Premier League and often hear about championship clubs sniffing about as well but almost never Sunderland. Now I hope that's the case because everyone knows Iâm a Sunderland supporter and they just donât want to tell me ;p I firmly believe that Bruce is done with wholesale buys, and that he is going to start looking for one or two players per window to improve the squad versus revamping it. I look forward to how the Sunderland team takes shape in the next few seasons but for now, itâs Aston Villa next week.
