Maja update

This has made me eat a large chunk of humble pie. Good luck to the lad.....

Jack Ross reveals Josh Maja's classy gesture for Sunderland staff on striker's return to club

Former striker Josh Maja recently returned to Sunderland to thank the club's staff for their support.

The 20-year-old joined French side Bordeaux on a four-and-a-half-year deal last month, after scoring 16 goals in 30 appearances for the Black Cats this season.

Maja earned plenty of plaudits on Wearside and was named the North East Football Writers’ Association Young Player of the Year for 2018 at Sunday night's annual awards dinner.

Sunderland boss Jack Ross collected the award on the striker's behalf and praised Maja for his actions both on and off the pitch.

"I think that in modern football there's a lot of hysteria that's created in comment which is unfounded at times and without good substance," said Ross.

"Josh was not only a tremendously talented young player but was a very humble young man.

"That was shown by the fact he returned to the club a couple of weeks ago, left gifts, not just for myself and the coaching staff but for a lot of the people around the club, handwritten cards thanking them for the support they've given him and allowing him to progress his career.

"That example of how a young man conducts himself is something people don't often get to see."

Maja turned down a new contract offer from Sunderland before joining for a reported £3.5million fee.

Yet Ross didn't begrudge Maja's decision and doesn't believe he should be criticised for wanting to move on.

"It's just reflective of personalty, I worked with him for eight months and in that time he was fantastic not only on the pitch but also the way he conducted himself off the pitch.

"His willingness and desire to improve and get better every day was terrific.

"He's made a lifestyle choice and a career choice and I don't think anybody should criticise him for that."

 

He's still a c*nt.

 

I have always backed and loved Maja and never agreed with any body on here who called him a self centered greedy twat.^^^^^^^^

 

Nice to hear the lad has some class.

 

Cheap gestures change the fact that he let the club down big time ? not for me. Onwards and upwards SAFC.

 

How did let us down?

He got a good offer that I don't think anyone would have refused in his shoes.

 

Previous management let us down by not giving youth players contracts that would stop this kind of situation from happening.

 

Memo to Bob - give a gift and you will be forgiven all things ......reminds me of the time I bought the wife them flowers now what had I done again mmmh

 

I hope he bags us some cash but a lot of folk have sharp forgotten he lied to the the club while his agent sorted his new club. I love our club, I dislike players who try to play the club as a silly ****. But that's fine with many people seems.

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He mugged us. I cant thank him and wish him well for that.

 

FFS He’s gone - let’s move on eh?

Bart

 

How did he mug us?

 

If our owner is to believed, he kept us hanging on a promise that he was gonna sign whilst they were actually looking to leave. If we were actually 100% aware that he was never gonna sign we might have had more time and options to replace him and not have to have had to pay £4 million for Grigg.

He lied to us, allowing his stock to rise over the coming months, rather than telling us the truth, and risk losing out on playing time, development and a prized move. Understandable really, but it leaves a nasty taste.

 

We haven't paid £4m for Grigg - we WILL pay £4m for Grigg if we make it to the premier league - that's directly from the owner

 

Sorry, potentially £4 million. Any idea how much we had to stump up initially? If its anywhere near £2 million I bet that's still alot more than we were hoping to spend, and alot more than what we would have spent if we had more heads up from Maja.

 

Not sure, Grigg was the ideal signing and £2million was always going to be ball park. The add-ones are irrelevant as if we were pushing for Premier League it’s highly unlikely Grigg won’t have been moved on.

I do agree we seemed to go into desperation and meltdown end of window though when it was clear Maja was leaving from mid December, maybe even earlier if we are honest.

 

Lied point blank to us saying he wanted to stay while his agent was off sorting his new club, unless you're taking the side of a football mercenary and a agent over our manager and incredibly open, frank and honest owner, yes he mugged us off.

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At the time I read in a few places (none of which were individually that reliable to be fair) that it was roughly £1.5m initially with another £1-1.5m once promoted to Championship and same again for Premiership. I think that's a touch simplified as there'll likely be a "number of goals" and "number of appearances" fee to be triggered but the ballpark was that it was starting at £1.5m and going up to a maximum of £4m. I think that's fair enough really.

I would suspect the clauses kick in even if he leaves us and will be based on how Sunderland do over the next 3-4 years rather than the contribution of Grigg.

 

Appearances and goals obviously are linked to the player mate, but yeah maybe ‘hit Prem in x years’ may apply.

Frankly we wouldn’t give a **** as couple million if we are Premier League is chicken feed.

I think the £1.5m up top is likely close, and I agree with you, a fair pull out.

 

It's the world we live in now.

Yes maja took advantage of the situation (at least he was professional up to and including his last game for us) , buts it's the way that previous management left us open to it that annoys me.