Sunderland manager Gus Poyet concedes he is not happy with the club's business in the summer transfer market. Poyet and Sunderland sporting director Lee Congerton brought in nine new players to the Stadium of Light before the September 1 deadline. However, the recruitment drive was not an unqualified success, with Marcos Alonso and Fabio Borini, who performed so well on loan for the Black Cats last season, among the ones who got away. And Poyet revealed that he was not satisfied with the clubâs efforts to strengthen. Poyet said: "It's very easy to say that I'm happy because then everybody will be delighted with my words. But at the same time, I am not happy. I am all right. "We were expecting to have a certain number of players. We were very close to doing a couple of very important things; we didn't do it. Then we changed slightly and we got different players. "We tried. We tried our best and what we got was the best we could do. I don't want really to reflect on how it went because it's not fair." Borini's return was one of the major focuses for Poyet and despite being encouraged throughout the summer, the deal did not come off as the 23-year-old stayed at Liverpool despite approaches from Sunderland and QPR. The Italian played much of his football for Sunderland last season wide on the left side of midfield, and while Alvarez is likely to occupy that berth this time around, Poyet insists he is not a direct replacement. Poyet said: "People will think that Ricky Alvarez is the substitute for Borini, but for me he is not. There are different opinions - I don't think they are right or wrong, they are just different opinions. "Ricky is a player who is exciting on the ball and is going to create things on his own, but he's not a top scorer. So either we make him a top scorer and then we can say one is a replacement for the other one... "I think it's unfair on both players, on Ricky and on Fabio. Of course, he is going to play in the position where Fabio was playing last year - I don't know exactly if he is going to be there all the time on the left. "He can play in that position, but that doesn't mean he is a natural substitute for Fabio Borini."
Borini can go **** himself, no small part of me wants him here now. Let's be honest, he's hardly ****ing Messi anyway, we all got a bit carried away. Decent player, nothing more.
"I think it's unfair on both players, on Ricky and on Fabio. Of course, he is going to play in the position where Fabio was playing last year - I don't know exactly if he is going to be there all the time on the left. Bri - were still none the wiser! Think he'll be used wide at first and maybe CM in January when we get Welbeck on loan
He's just making sure the pressure stays on recruiting.......still a few to go and come in over the full season, before it's truly his squad.
GUSTAVO POYET understands why Fabio Borini rejected the chance to return to Sunderland at the beginning of the month but has not ruled out a fresh attempt to lure the Italian to Wearside in the New Year. Poyet, speaking for the first time since the transfer window closed on September 1, has revealed he held hope Borini would change his mind just hours before the 11pm deadline but was then left frustrated. Sunderland had agreed a £14m fee for the Italian in July but he wanted to put making a decision on hold because of an ambition to play in the Champions League this season, ideally at Anfield with the Reds. But after Liverpool moved in on Mario Balotelli to replace Luis Suarez, forcing Borini back down the pecking order behind Daniel Sturridge and Rickie Lambert, Poyet remained hopeful the player would change his mind late in the day. The Sunderland boss said: “Fabio was aiming to play in Europe and his aim was Liverpool first, and then any team playing in Europe next. We decided to make a move right or wrong. Now it is very easy to say the move was a little bit too early because he was trying to wait for one of the top teams, all of the time. “Back then we were in a rush to get the player. Then time went past, he kept waiting, there was a moment when it was less possible. Towards the end he was available again. But at that time, we couldn’t, we couldn’t buy him: simple as that. “At 7pm on the Monday I thought we had a great chance of signing him. When the story of QPR trying to sign him came out, we didn’t have a good chance. So it went from yes, having everything there, to having nothing at the end. We knew he was not going on loan anywhere. “I am really pleased that he didn’t go on loan anywhere, because that shows the professionalism of the people at Liverpool because they said he would not. It was not as if they changed their minds in the last minute and they went somewhere else. I was really happy at Liverpool’s attitude. I thought we had a great chance and in the end we couldn’t get him.” Having spent more than six weeks waiting for a decision from Borini, Sunderland came up short in the transfer market because of a failure to secure the extra striker required to replace Ignacio Scocco. Poyet - admitting in hindsight he ‘would probably do things differently’ – is exploring the free agent market and Jonas, who looks set for Tottenham after leaving Valencia, was under serious consideration. If he is unable to find a suitable striker, however, Borini could still be on the radar at the turn of the year. “It depends on where we are,” he said. “It is difficult to say now. I wouldn’t like to say yes or no because I don’t know how we are going to be, how he is going to be, what we will be looking for, how the wide players have been doing if we change the system. I don’t know.” He added: “I understand his point of view. I can put myself in his point of view and I would like to be honest and say maybe I would have done the same if I was him. He is a Liverpool player who played for Roma before they bought him for a lot of money. “After last season here he thought “I can play in Europe now”. I think that is fair and understandable. He couldn’t and I think we both feel a little ‘hmmm, maybe that was not the right way to do it’.” Sunderland, who have a fully fit squad ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Tottenham, did add winger Ricky Alvarez and defender Sebastian Coates on deadline day from Inter Milan and Liverpool respectively. That took Poyet’s recruitment drive to eight players this summer. “Our transfer window was a bit of a roller coaster,” he said. “We started very early with three free signings. Then we went a month with no one. Then we signed another two or three. Then we went another two or three weeks. That is the way it is. “When we got those three signings in and we were close to doing Jack Rodwell and Fabio everything was looking in a great way and that it would continue that way. You never know how it will go. “For me, if we are looking at numbers, maybe we are a little bit short. But it will depend on the players’ fitness in the weeks ahead how we do. Today everyone is fit and I don’t know how many teams can say that.” Whether Sunderland add to the list of new-boys before January 1 remains to be seen, but Poyet will be considering those available. He said: “We have been looking. We are trying. “In my time if you were free you would have a hundred offers. But now it is the opposite way around. There is always a ‘but’ in there. Look, two weeks have gone past and we have not brought anyone in so I would be surprised if it happened now.”
Watched him 4 times for Celtic and he looks utterly dog **** to me. One of those defenders that's good on the ball, like that makes them valuable. Legia pulled the lad to bits and went straight though him for fun.
